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Jacques, Michaela, “Sexual discourse and structural unity in Hywel ab Owain Gwynedd’s Gorhoffedd”, Studia Celtica 52 (2018): 113–122.

  • journal article
Citation details
Contributors
Article
“Sexual discourse and structural unity in Hywel ab Owain Gwynedd’s Gorhoffedd”
Periodical
Studia Celtica: The Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies 52 (2018)
Studia Celtica 52 (2018), University of Wales Press.
Volume
52
Pages
113–122
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Description
Abstract (cited)
The mid-twelfth century Welsh poem 'Gorhoffedd', attributed to Hywel ab Owain Gwynedd, has frequently been divided by modern critics into two distinct sections (or even two distinct poems), owing to a break in both metre and subject matter between its first and second halves. The first half treats the speaker's love of Gwynedd; the second, his love of women. Each portion tends to be alternately highlighted or ignored depending on the demands of a given critical enterprise. In this paper, it is argued that such a compartmentalized approach elides the complexity and deliberate ambiguity of of the poem as a whole, and gives insufficient weight to its manuscript context. Instead, a reading is offered in which the discourse of nature is both subordinated to and transformed into sexual discourse: elaborate descriptions of love for the natural features of Gwynedd are transposed onto the women in the second half. By moving beyond metre as the sole criterion for structural unity, it is possible to offer a productive reading of the entire work as a complete and intricate artistic production, rather than the semi-successful melding of two disparate texts.
Subjects and topics
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Contributors
Dennis Groenewegen
Page created
April 2019
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