Erich
Poppe s. xx–xxi
2022
Celts, Gaels, and Britons offers a miscellany of essays exploring three closely connected areas within the fields of Celtic Studies in order to shed new light on the ancient and medieval Celtic languages and their literatures. Taking as its inspiration the scholarship of Professor Patrick Sims-Williams, to whom this volume is dedicated, the papers gathered together here explore the Continental Celtic languages, texts from the Irish Sea world, and the literature and linguistics of the British languages, among them Welsh and Cornish. With essays from eighteen leading scholars in the field, this in-depth volume serves not only as a monument to the rich and varied career of Sims-Williams, but also offers a wealth of commentary and information to present significant primary research and reconsiderations of existing scholarship.
Celts, Gaels, and Britons offers a miscellany of essays exploring three closely connected areas within the fields of Celtic Studies in order to shed new light on the ancient and medieval Celtic languages and their literatures. Taking as its inspiration the scholarship of Professor Patrick Sims-Williams, to whom this volume is dedicated, the papers gathered together here explore the Continental Celtic languages, texts from the Irish Sea world, and the literature and linguistics of the British languages, among them Welsh and Cornish. With essays from eighteen leading scholars in the field, this in-depth volume serves not only as a monument to the rich and varied career of Sims-Williams, but also offers a wealth of commentary and information to present significant primary research and reconsiderations of existing scholarship.
2021
2020
This article explores the devices employed by the medieval Welsh narrator of Owain, or Chwedyl Iarlles y Ffynnawn (‘The Story of the Lady of the Well’), to convey emotions and the mental states of his characters to his audiences. Although he generally remains inaudible, he uses, at some crucial points, words and phrases denoting emotions in a narrow sense, such as love, sadness and shame, in order to direct and steer the audiences’ perception and their understanding of the narrative. A comparison with thematically related texts, Chrétien de Troyes’ Yvain, and its Old Norse, Old Swedish and Middle English translations, helps to assess the narrative role of literary emotions in the Welsh text.
This article explores the devices employed by the medieval Welsh narrator of Owain, or Chwedyl Iarlles y Ffynnawn (‘The Story of the Lady of the Well’), to convey emotions and the mental states of his characters to his audiences. Although he generally remains inaudible, he uses, at some crucial points, words and phrases denoting emotions in a narrow sense, such as love, sadness and shame, in order to direct and steer the audiences’ perception and their understanding of the narrative. A comparison with thematically related texts, Chrétien de Troyes’ Yvain, and its Old Norse, Old Swedish and Middle English translations, helps to assess the narrative role of literary emotions in the Welsh text.
2019
The paper compares and contextualizes the comments of Gruffudd Bola (fl. 1270/1280) and Robert Gwyn (c. 1545–c. 1597/1603) on their strategies of translating (quotations from) authoritative religious texts. In the introductory section of his translation of the Athanasian Creed, which he produced for Efa ferch Maredudd, Gruffudd Bola employs the topos of ‘(sometimes) word-for-word’ versus ‘(sometimes) sense-by-sense’ to explain and justify his approach whenever the structural demands of the target language render a literal translation impossible. About three hundred years later, Robert Gwyn, the recusant author of Y Drych Kristnogawl (‘The Christian Mirror’, c. 1583/1584), argues that in the devotional-didactic genre the translations of quotations from authoritative religious texts such as the Bible need to be adapted to his audience’s level of understanding. He thus subordinates fidelity on the literal level to the demands of comprehensibility. Both authors insist on the priority of successful communication, but approach the translator’s dilemma in different frameworks.
The paper compares and contextualizes the comments of Gruffudd Bola (fl. 1270/1280) and Robert Gwyn (c. 1545–c. 1597/1603) on their strategies of translating (quotations from) authoritative religious texts. In the introductory section of his translation of the Athanasian Creed, which he produced for Efa ferch Maredudd, Gruffudd Bola employs the topos of ‘(sometimes) word-for-word’ versus ‘(sometimes) sense-by-sense’ to explain and justify his approach whenever the structural demands of the target language render a literal translation impossible. About three hundred years later, Robert Gwyn, the recusant author of Y Drych Kristnogawl (‘The Christian Mirror’, c. 1583/1584), argues that in the devotional-didactic genre the translations of quotations from authoritative religious texts such as the Bible need to be adapted to his audience’s level of understanding. He thus subordinates fidelity on the literal level to the demands of comprehensibility. Both authors insist on the priority of successful communication, but approach the translator’s dilemma in different frameworks.
2018
2017
2016
In Cath Catharda, the adaption of Lucan’s verse epic Bellum Civile, is a hitherto little explored example of a medieval Irish translation of a classical text. This paper explores some aspects of its structure and its employment of sources, in particular its bipartite narrative architecture and its teleology, its use of medieval explicative scholia on Lucan’s text, and the format and the sources of its historiographical introduction. It is suggested that this introduction’s section on Roman history and political organisation derives from a source that is also reflected in a similar passage in the Old Icelandic Rómverja saga.
In Cath Catharda, the adaption of Lucan’s verse epic Bellum Civile, is a hitherto little explored example of a medieval Irish translation of a classical text. This paper explores some aspects of its structure and its employment of sources, in particular its bipartite narrative architecture and its teleology, its use of medieval explicative scholia on Lucan’s text, and the format and the sources of its historiographical introduction. It is suggested that this introduction’s section on Roman history and political organisation derives from a source that is also reflected in a similar passage in the Old Icelandic Rómverja saga.
2015
2014
[EN] This paper investigates patterns of agreement between the subject and its verb in Historia Gruffud vab Kenan, the early-thirteenth-century Middle Welsh translation of the Latin Vita Griffini Filii Conani. Contrastive statistics are provided for the number of instances in which the normative expectations concerning verbal agreement in Middle Welsh are met as well as for the number of instances which deviate from these expectations. In this text, deviation from the normative expectations is quite rare with subjects preceding the verb in verb-second (‘abnormal’) sentences, whereas it is much more frequent with plural subjects following the verb and, particularly, plural antecedents functioning as the subject in relative clauses. In the latter case, an influence of the agreement rules of Latin appears likely. A separate section discusses a range of individual sentences which pose specific problems with regard to patterns of agreement, the identification of syntactic structures, or the amount of permitted variation.
[EN] This paper investigates patterns of agreement between the subject and its verb in Historia Gruffud vab Kenan, the early-thirteenth-century Middle Welsh translation of the Latin Vita Griffini Filii Conani. Contrastive statistics are provided for the number of instances in which the normative expectations concerning verbal agreement in Middle Welsh are met as well as for the number of instances which deviate from these expectations. In this text, deviation from the normative expectations is quite rare with subjects preceding the verb in verb-second (‘abnormal’) sentences, whereas it is much more frequent with plural subjects following the verb and, particularly, plural antecedents functioning as the subject in relative clauses. In the latter case, an influence of the agreement rules of Latin appears likely. A separate section discusses a range of individual sentences which pose specific problems with regard to patterns of agreement, the identification of syntactic structures, or the amount of permitted variation.
2013
2012
This paper examines the placement of obligatory adverbial phrases in positive main clauses in Pedeir Keinc y Mabinogi, in the first part (Y Keis) of Ystoryaeu Seint Greal, and in Ystorya Bown o Hamtwn in which a third singular or plural form of mynet is combined with a locative phrase containing the preposition y or at. Within the individual texts, considerable positional variation occurs, but this variation can be shown to be explicable in terms of a contextual and pragmatic analysis. The comparison of the positional patterns and their narrative uses in the three texts shows a striking stability of the pragmatic principle for the placement of constituents in positive main clauses in the language of Middle Welsh prose – even if, as it may be the case in a few examples from Ystorya Bown, the syntactic choices of the Middle Welsh translator have been influenced by his Anglo-Norman source. Finally, some promising paths for future research are delineated.
This paper examines the placement of obligatory adverbial phrases in positive main clauses in Pedeir Keinc y Mabinogi, in the first part (Y Keis) of Ystoryaeu Seint Greal, and in Ystorya Bown o Hamtwn in which a third singular or plural form of mynet is combined with a locative phrase containing the preposition y or at. Within the individual texts, considerable positional variation occurs, but this variation can be shown to be explicable in terms of a contextual and pragmatic analysis. The comparison of the positional patterns and their narrative uses in the three texts shows a striking stability of the pragmatic principle for the placement of constituents in positive main clauses in the language of Middle Welsh prose – even if, as it may be the case in a few examples from Ystorya Bown, the syntactic choices of the Middle Welsh translator have been influenced by his Anglo-Norman source. Finally, some promising paths for future research are delineated.
2011
2010
2009
Recent research into the development of the Welsh negation has shown that it follows the principle of Jespersen's Cycle, in which an originally emphatic negative-polarity expression gradually loses its emphasis and finally becomes the only, or at least the main, marker of negation. One important stage in this process is characterized by the occurrence of negative-polarity expressions with unambiguous adverbial force. In this article, I will analyse and classify the uses of dim as an expression of negative polarity in the Middle Welsh adaptation of the Anglo-Norman Geste de Boeve de Haumtone, Ystorya Bown de Hamtwn, and discuss a range of loan phrases that are used as negative-polarity items.
Recent research into the development of the Welsh negation has shown that it follows the principle of Jespersen's Cycle, in which an originally emphatic negative-polarity expression gradually loses its emphasis and finally becomes the only, or at least the main, marker of negation. One important stage in this process is characterized by the occurrence of negative-polarity expressions with unambiguous adverbial force. In this article, I will analyse and classify the uses of dim as an expression of negative polarity in the Middle Welsh adaptation of the Anglo-Norman Geste de Boeve de Haumtone, Ystorya Bown de Hamtwn, and discuss a range of loan phrases that are used as negative-polarity items.
2008
2007
2006
As honouree
| Bock, Franziska, Dagmar Bronner, and Dagmar Schlüter (eds), Allerlei Keltisches. Studien zu Ehren von Erich Poppe. Studies in honour of Erich Poppe, Berlin: curach bhán, 2011.. |
