Texts

Welsh prose Mandeville

  • Early Modern Welsh
  • prose

A Welsh prose rendition of The Buke of John Mandeville. Its source has been identified as Thomas East’s printed edition published in 1568.

Language
  • Early Modern Welsh
Form
prose (primary)
Textual relationships
(Possible) sources: The buke of John MaundevilleThe buke of John Maundeville

Middle English version of an Old French text on the travels of one Sir John Mandeville in the Middle and Near East.

Related: Ymddiddan a fv rhwng yr holwr a’r gigfranYmddiddan a fv rhwng yr holwr a’r gigfran

Versified Welsh version of the Travels of Sir John Mandeville, attributed to Richard ap John of Scorlegan (16th century).

Classification

Keywords

MandevilleMandeville
...

Travel literatureTravel literature
...

Sources

Primary sources Text editions and/or modern translations – in whole or in part – along with publications containing additions and corrections, if known. Diplomatic editions, facsimiles and digital image reproductions of the manuscripts are not always listed here but may be found in entries for the relevant manuscripts. For historical purposes, early editions, transcriptions and translations are not excluded, even if their reliability does not meet modern standards.

Edition wanted
Translation wanted

Secondary sources (select)

Conley, Kassandra Leighann, “Looking towards India: nativism and orientalism in the literature of Wales, 1300-1600”, PhD thesis, Harvard University, 2014.  
Chapters: I. Building a Welsh vocabulary of wonder: the role of mirabilia in medieval Welsh prose -- II. Olion Cewri: Galfridian history and early modern Welsh identity -- III. The relics of British wonder in the Tudor landscape -- IV. The relics of British wonder in the new world -- V. The anxiety of travel in sixteenth century Wales: the cases of John Mandeville and Alexander the Great -- Epilogue.
abstract:

After the conquest of 1282, Wales increasingly fell under the dominion of England and in 1535, the first Laws in Wales Act officially annexed the country. During this period of political and legal instability, Welsh men and women fought to regain independence, a struggle that led to the development of a nascent national identity. For many authors, this identity was fundamentally rooted in the topography of Wales and the mythical histories concerning the cultivation of its land. This interest in native mirabilia corresponded with a period of increased availability of English and continental geographical treatises and travelogues that provided Welsh authors with a new vocabulary for discussing wonder. Medieval and early modern Welsh authors incorporated these exotic geographies into their accounts of native landscapes in order to differentiate Wales from England and argue for a sense of Welsh cultural exceptionalism based in its alterity.

Dash.harvard.edu – PDF: <link>
Chotzen, Theodor-Max Thomas, “Deux traductions galloises”, Études Celtiques 2:4 (1937): 304–333.
Persée – Études Celtiques, vol. 2, fascicule 3, 1937: <link> Persée – Études Celtiques, vol. 2, fascicule 4, 1937: <link>
Davies, William Beynon, “Siôn Mawndfil yn Gymraeg”, Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies 5:4 (1931, 1929–1931): 287–327.
Contributors
Dennis Groenewegen
Page created
April 2022, last updated: June 2023