Bibliography

Lewis, Barry J., Gwaith Gruffudd ap Maredudd, 3 vols, Cyfres beirdd yr uchelwyr, 24, 29, 33, Aberystwyth: Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, University of Wales, 2003–2007.

Book/Monograph

Citation details

Contributors

Lewis (Barry J.)

Work

Gwaith Gruffudd ap Maredudd (3 vols)

Place

Aberystwyth

Publisher

Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, University of Wales

Year

2003–2007

Series

Cyfres beirdd yr uchelwyr 24, 29, 33

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Parts indexed separately

Lewis, Barry J., Gwaith Gruffudd ap Maredudd, vol. 1: Canu i deulu Penmynydd, Cyfres beirdd yr uchelwyr, 24, Aberystwyth: Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, University of Wales, 2003. xvii + 171 pp.

abstract:

Aptly described by Saunders Lewis as ‘one of the greats’, Gruffudd ap Maredudd was a native of Anglesey. He is the most important of the fourteenth-century figures who continued and elaborated upon the tradition of the Poets of the Princes. His poetry, comprising c .2400 lines of eulogy and elegy, religious verse, love poetry and satire, is preserved in the Red Book of Hergest. Seven of the eight poems edited in this volume are praise poems and elegies to members of the powerful family of Penmynydd, Anglesey, who were patrons to many important poets of the period, including Iolo Goch and Llywelyn Goch ap Meurig Hen. The final poem in the volume addresses an unknown patron, who was also probably a member of the same family.

(source: University of Wales)

: <link>

Lewis, Barry J., Gwaith Gruffudd ap Maredudd, vol. 2: Cerddi Crefyddol, Cyfres beirdd yr uchelwyr, 29, Aberystwyth: Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, University of Wales, 2005. xix + 229 pp.

abstract:

This is the second volume of poetry by the fourteenth-century Anglesey poet Gruffudd ap Maredudd ap Dafydd, and contains all of his religious verse. Gruffudd has an important part to play in the history of Welsh religious poetry, not only because of the volume of his work (over a thousand lines are edited here), but also because of the variety and many-sidedness of his themes. We have solemn penitential poems side by side with joyful songs of praise to God; odes to the Virgin Mary; englynion about the three wise men and the four evangelists; and a powerful prayer to God, begging him to avert the Black Death from Gwynedd. Gruffudd’s long ode to the rood at Chester is a masterpiece: this, without doubt, is one of the most ambitious poems of the period. In the introduction to this volume the poet’s religious work is discussed within the context of the Catholicism of the Late Middle Ages.

(source: University of Wales)

: <link>

Owen, Ann Parry, Gwaith Gruffudd ap Maredudd, vol. 3: Canu Amrywiol, Cyfres beirdd yr uchelwyr, 33, Aberystwyth: Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, University of Wales, 2006. xix + 283 pp.

abstract:

This is the last of three volumes of the work of Gruffudd ap Maredudd ap Dafydd, the Gogynfardd from Anglesey who flourished in the second half of the fourteenth century. It contains a variety of poems reflecting the broad range of subjects that inspired a poet such as Gruffudd. There is a highly nationalistic ode to Owain Lawgoch, a direct descendant of the Gwynedd royal dynasty, encouraging him to return from France to repossess Wales. This poem is a striking contrast to the later elegy to Sir Hywel y Fwyall, the former constable of Cricieth castle, who was honoured for his service to the King of England in the battle of Poitiers. There are three poems dedicated to women: two series of love englynion to the aristocratic girls of Anglesey, and the third a powerful elegiac ode to Gwenhwyfar of Pentraeth, claimed to be one of the greatest poems of the fourteenth century. His four surviving satirical poems are cruel, and contain descriptions of bodily pestilence, of a woman with very loose morals, and of the contorted body of a thief hanging on a gibbet. A full glossary to all of Gruffudd’s work is provided at the end of the volume.

(source: University of Wales)

: <link>

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