(ca. 1325–ca. 1380)
Dafydd ap Gwilym is universally acknowledged to be the greatest medieval Welsh poet, perhaps the greatest Welsh poet of all time.While eminently conscious of the old Welsh bardic tradition that preceded him, Dafydd was also familiar with the COURTLY LOVE conventions practiced by the French poets who were popular among the new Anglo-Norman aristocracy in Wales. He borrowed from those conventions to forge a new kind ofWelsh poetry that Dafydd, through his wide travels and reputation, brought into the mainstream of European literature.
Tradition says Dafydd was born in southern Wales at Brogynin in Cardiganshire, five miles northeast of Aberystwyth. His father was Gwilym Gam ap Gwilym, and his family was apparently of the uchelwyr (that is, part of the native Welsh aristocracy). Dafydd spent part of his youth with his uncle, Llywelyn ap Gwilym, who was constable of Newcastle Emlyn (and himself a poet), and seems to have been influential in Dafydd’s education. Wales had lost its independence in 1282, and Dafydd belonged to a family of some wealth with a history of serving the Norman aristocracy. Dafydd himself seems to have had no fixed occupation but a comfortable fortune. He may have qualified early in his life for minor religious orders, but spent a good deal of his life traveling around Wales—to Bangor, to Anglesey, even to Chester (to which he alludes in one of his poems), though he seems not to have gone any further beyond the borders of his home country. In his travels he apparently visited the houses of the Welsh and Norman gentry and the taverns of the Norman towns, where he entertained all with his poems in the Welsh tongue. His travels and his aristocratic education probably brought him into contact with the young wandering poets from France and from Provence, whom the Welsh called Y Gler, and from whom he may have learned the courtly conventions of love poetry. Dafydd also seems to have lived for a time with his patron, Ifor ap Llewelyn, on his estate in Glamorganshire.Dafydd seems to have seen his relationship with Ifor as similar to the bards’ relationships with their princes before 1282.He dedicated a number of poems to Ifor, and may have been responsible for giving Ifor his epithet Hael (the generous). Dafydd died in about 1380. According to tradition, he was buried at the Cistercian abbey of Strata Florida, not far from his birthplace. Though the abbey is now in ruins, a slate memorial on the grounds is dedicated to Dafydd ap Gwilym. Two of his fellow poets (Iolo Goch and Madog Benfras) wrote elegies for him, calling him “the nightingale of Dafed” and “the pillar of song of the southland.”
About 160 of Dafydd’s songs are extant, in addition to a number of doubtful poems sometimes ascribed to him. Among them are satires, praise poems, elegies, as well as poems concerning nature and love, two themes that before him were not generally the subjects of serious poetry in Welsh. At times, particularly when writing traditional kinds of lyrics like songs of praise for his patrons, Dafydd used the traditional form from the previous century, called awdl. But for most of his poems, especially his lyrics of love and nature, Dafydd utilized the new cywydd verse-form. This was a very difficult form consisting of seven-syllable lines arranged in couplets and employing cynghanedd, an intricate system that included assonance, consonance, and internal rhyme as well as parenthetical commentary. Such elaborate effects make his lyrics incredibly difficult to translate.
Dafydd called himself “den Ofydd” (that is, “Ovid’s man”). His most characteristic poems focus on love themes, especially in idealized natural settings where physical love is an escape from the strictures of society. Often he utilizes the fanciful device of the llatai (“love messenger”)—a friendly bird or animal that takes his love message to his lady. The lady is generally one of two favorites: the fair-haired Morfudd or the dark Dyddgu. Many scholars speculate that these women are simply types for the poet, though it is possible he may be addressing some of his love poems to noble ladies in his audience.
Dafydd’s love poetry is atypical, however, for two reasons. First, it makes no pretensions of being spiritual—his poems are sensual and celebrate physical love exclusively. Second, he writes with humor and with a colloquial style that adds to the freshness and immediacy of his lyrics. In what is perhaps his best-known poem, Merched Llanbadarn (The girls of Llanbadarn), he presents the speaker of his poem attending church for the sole purpose of ogling the women, and when one woman points out to her friend that the young man is staring at her, the lady replies
‘Is that how it is with him?’
The other, by her, asks her
‘Whilst this world lasts, it’s no response
To him; to hell with him, the ponce!’
(Thomas 2001, 101, ll. 31–34)
Dafydd ap Gwilym is a major medieval poet. In some ways, his writing in a difficult meter in an obscure language has prevented him from having a wider reputation than he currently has. But his innovations in form and in content revolutionized poetry in Welsh, and his use of the cywydd verseform made it the most popular poetic form among Welsh poets for at least 300 years.
Bibliography
■ Bell,H. Idris, and David Bell, ed. and trans.Dafydd ap Gwilym: Fifty Poems. London: The Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 1942.
■ Bromwich, Rachel, trans. Dafydd ap Gwilym: A Selection of Poems. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1982.
■ ———. Tradition and Innovation in the Poetry of Dafydd ap Gwilym. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1987.
■ Loomis, Richard M. Dafydd ap Gwilyn: The Poems. Binghamton, N.Y.: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1982.
■ Thomas, Gwyn. Dafydd ap Gwilym: His Poems. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2001.