Storytelling elements

[Heather Rose Jones]

On Sun, 7 Jan 1996, Louise Agnes Cain wrote:

> Can someone direct me to a book/subject/phamplet which discusses the 
> forms of poetry used in Ireland, Scotland and Wales?

I don't know of a single source that covers all three. The best source 
for Welsh meters of the high medieval period (ca. 14th century) would be 
some version of the bardic grammars composed during that period, which 
contained detailed descriptions of the "official" meters and examples of 
both good and bad style in poetry. Unfortunately, I don't know of any 
published English translations of any of these (although there is a 
wonderful compilation of the major variants in Welsh -- under the title 
"Grammadegau'r Penceirddiaid"). I know that there is _some_ published 
description of the meters in English, because I still have my scribbled 
notes from nearly twenty years ago, but I didn't include a title or 
author in them! Some help I am. I _will_ note that the best, concise 
description and demonstration of the mysteries of Welsh rhyme and 
cynghanedd written in English is probably "Celtic Word Craft" by D. Idwal 
Lloyd published by Dyllansow Truran and available from many 
Welsh-oriented mail-order companies. One problem with taking your 
understanding of medieval Welsh poetry from the official "twenty-four 
meters" in the abovementioned bardic grammars is that the meters they 
describe are far more rigid than actual practice produced. They are 
particularly inapplicable to the study of the earliest Welsh poems (e.g. 
the Gododdin) which seem to have been far more stress-oriented than 
syllable-oriented.

For medieval Irish poetry, I have seen a number of excellant articles by 
Calvin Watkins, published in various Celtic or linguistic oriented 
journals, however they may be a bit dense reading for the beginner. 
(Heck, some of them were a bit dense reading for the graduate students in 
a Celtic linguistics class!) But if you want a bit of a challenge (and 
have a fair reading knowledge of Sanskrit and Greek in addition to Old 
Irish), you might enjoy "Indo-European Metrics and Archaic Irish Verse" 
appearing in volume 6 of Celtica (1963). You might also see if you can 
locate a book called "Early Irish Metrics" by Gerard Murphy (1961), which 
is referenced in Watkins' article. These are both oriented toward the 
oldest styles of Irish poetry. Since Irish isn't my specialty, I can't 
give a better overall picture. I know that there are a number of 
excellant collections of late-period Irish Gaelic poetry (since I was 
doing name research -- of all things! -- in some of them) but they didn't 
seem to provide much in the way of metrical analysis.

If you are looking for period _Gaelic_ poetry in Scotland, about your 
only useful source will be some edition of the collection known as the 
"Book of the Dean of Lismore". The edition I've seen ("Reliquiae Celticae 
vol.1" ed. Alexander MacBain, 1892) had no discussion of metrics, 
however, but only a presentation of the contents.

For period poetry of these lands written in English, your best bet would 
be to look for authors of the relevant nationality in collections of 
English poetry of the appropriate period. Most often, you will probably 
find that it uses the same meters used in mainstream English (in the 
cultural, rather than linguistic sense) poetry. In rare cases, you may 
find that a poet has used native meters when writing in English -- it has 
certainly been done in more modern times with elements from the 
traditional Welsh meters.

Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn