Texts
Gwreans an bys
Incoming data
The catalogue entry for this text has not been published as yet. Until then, a selection of data is made available below.
Manuscript witnesses
Text
London, British Library, MS Additional 28554
Copy, with Keigwin’s English translation.
ff. 24v–49
Text
London, British Library, MS Additional 43409
Fragment of the beginning of the Cornish text, with Keigwin’s English translation. It is written in reverse page order, beg. on. f. 58v.
ff. 56v–58v
MS
London, British Library, MS Additional 43409
Fragment of the play, written in reverse order from f. 58v to 56v.
f. 56v–
Text
London, British Library, MS Harley 1867
Copy, possibly from Add. 28554, again with Keigwin’s English translation.
ff. 2–58v
Text
Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 219
Incomplete transcript by William Jordan of Helston, dated 12 August 1611.
MS
Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Cornish c. 1
rubric: Tit. III. The Creation of the World, a [miracle] play ... written in Cornish by Mr Wm Jordan Four acts, with translation into Engish prose.
p. 82–
MS
Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Cornish c. 3
Cornish text, with Keigwin’s English translation.
f. 31v–
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.
[ed.] [tr.] Nance, Robert Morton, A. S. D. Smith, and E. G. Retallack Hooper, Gwryans an bys: or, The creation of the world, Redruth, Cornwall: Dyllansow Truran, 1985.
Edition in Unified Cornish orthography.
[ed.] [tr.] Neuss, Paula, The creacion of the world: a critical edition and translation, New York, London: Garland Press, 1983.
[ed.] [tr.] Gilbert, Davies, and John Keigwin [tr.], The creation of the world, with Noah’s Flood, written in Cornish in the year 1611 by Wm. Jordan, with an English translation, London: J.B. Nichols, 1827.
HathiTrust: <link>
Early edition based on Harl. MS 1867.
Secondary sources (select)
Murdoch, Brian, The apocryphal Adam and Eve in medieval Europe: vernacular translations and adaptations of the Vita Adae et Evae, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
abstract:
This book examines the development in medieval European literature of the story of Adam and Eve after the expulsion from paradise. The gaps in what the Bible records of their lives were filled in early and medieval times to a great extent by apocrypha or pseudepigrapha such as the Latin Life of Adam and Eve (which merges at some points with a series of legends of the Holy Rood). It describes their attempt to return to paradise by undertaking penance whilst immersed in a river, Eve's second temptation, and the ways in which Adam and Eve cope with the novelties of childbirth and death. The Vita Adae et Evae is part of a broad apocryphal tradition, but is not a unified text, and there are very many variations within the substantial number of extant versions. It was translated and adapted in prose, verse, and drama (as tracts, in chronicles, or as literary works) in virtually all western and some eastern European languages in the Middle Ages, and survived sometimes beyond that. These adaptations are examined on a comparative basis. There is a limited iconographical tradition. The book argues that the study of the apocryphal tradition demands examination of these vernacular texts; and also brings to light a very widespread aspect of European culture that disappeared to a large extent—though it did not die out completely—at the time of the Renaissance and Reformation, with their renewed insistence on canonicity and on the establishment of a foundation text for works of antiquity.
(source: publisher)
133 ff
