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'The Love Poetry of Dafydd ap Gwilym' |
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"Fourteenth century poets were often performers who entertained and instructed, and I hope that 'A House of Leaves' and the two readings based on Dafydd's poetry will also entertain and instruct in a lively and vigorous manner. Dafydd ap Gwilym is a great writer, a major part of our cultural heritage, and his work should be better known, both because it helps us to understand the unique world of Welsh civilization and also because, like all art, it teaches us about ourselves and about our own world." David Rowe |
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'The Love Poetry of Dafydd ap Gwilym' was written for the U.K. Year of Literature of Writing as part of the 'Wales in the World' festival. It is a light-hearted and lively consideration of the various types of love poetry that were popular in the fourteenth century, and of the work of Dafydd ap Gwilym. Dafydd has passed into legend and folklore as a great lover, a kind of medieval Welsh Casanova, and this is no doubt due in part ot the great number of love poems that he wrote. Certain of his poems are among the earliest examples of personal love poetry that were written in Welsh, including his passionate poems addressed to Morfudd. He also wrote formal, stylized declarations of love in the style of the courtly love convention that was all the rage in medieval Europe, and wonderfully funny tales of adventures which, given his laconic wit and self-deprecatory sense of humour, always seem to end in disaster - with the poor poet caught in most unfortunate circumstances.
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