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Mabinogi
The ''Mabinogion'' () are the earliest Welsh prose stories, and belong to the Matter of Britain. The stories were compiled in Middle Welsh in the 12th–13th centuries from earlier oral traditions. There are two main source manuscripts, created c. 1350–1410, as well as a few earlier fragments. The title covers a collection of eleven prose stories of widely different types, offering drama, philosophy, romance, tragedy, fantasy and humour, and created by various narrators over time. There is a classic hero quest, "Culhwch and Olwen"; a historic legend in "Lludd and Llefelys," complete with glimpses of a far off age; and other tales portray a very different King Arthur from the later popular versions. The highly sophisticated complexity of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi defies categorisation. The stories are so diverse that it has been argued that they are not even a true collection. Scholars from the 18th century to the 1970s predominantly viewed the tales as fragmentary p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Four Branches Of The Mabinogi
The ''Four Branches of the Mabinogi'' or ''Pedair Cainc Y Mabinogi'' are the earliest prose stories in the literature of Britain. Originally written in Wales in Middle Welsh, but widely available in translations, the ''Mabinogi'' is generally agreed to be a single work in four parts, or "branches." The interrelated tales can be read as mythology, political themes, romances, or magical fantasies. They appeal to a wide range of readers, from young children to the most sophisticated adult. The tales are popular today in book format, as storytelling or theatre performances; they appear in recordings and on film, and continue to inspire many reinterpretations in artwork and modern fiction. Overview The ''Mabinogi'' are known as the ''Four Branches of the Mabinogi'', or ''Pedair Cainc y Mabinogi'' in Welsh. The tales were compiled from oral tradition in the 11th century. They survived in private family libraries via medieval manuscripts, of which two main versions and some fragments stil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middle Welsh
Middle Welsh ( cy, Cymraeg Canol, wlm, Kymraec) is the label attached to the Welsh language of the 12th to 15th centuries, of which much more remains than for any earlier period. This form of Welsh developed directly from Old Welsh ( cy, Hen Gymraeg). Literature and history Middle Welsh is the language of nearly all surviving early manuscripts of the ''Mabinogion'', although the tales themselves are certainly much older. It is also the language of most of the manuscripts of Welsh law. Middle Welsh is reasonably intelligible, albeit with some work, to a modern-day Welsh speaker. Phonology The phonology of Middle Welsh is quite similar to that of modern Welsh, with only a few differences. The letter ''u'', which today represents in North Western Welsh dialects and in South Welsh and North East Welsh dialects, represented the close central rounded vowel in Middle Welsh. The diphthong ''aw'' is found in unstressed final syllables in Middle Welsh, while in Modern Welsh it has be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andrew Breeze
Andrew Breeze FRHistS FSA (born 1954), has been professor of philology at the University of Navarra since 1987. Early life Breeze was born in 1954 and educated at Sir Roger Manwood's School, the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge. In 1986, he worked as a scholar for the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies at the school of Celtic Studies. He is married with six children. Work Besides numerous research papers on the philology of many Celtic languages, he is the author of ''Medieval Welsh Literature'' (1997) and ''The Origins of the "Four Branches of the Mabinogi"'' (2009). He is also co-author with Professor Richard Coates of ''Celtic Voices, English Places'' (2000). Breeze has written about Mabinogi studies, and ''The Mabinogion'' research, especially addressing historical and political parallels. In 1997 he published the controversial "Did a woman write the Four Branches of the Mabinogi?", proposing a woman composer for this leading literary work of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
