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The Epic Interactive Encyclopedia 1998
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Epic Interactive Encyclopedia, The - 1998 Edition (1998)(Epic Marketing).iso
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INFOTEXT
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1992-09-02
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The chief remains of early Welsh literature
are contained in the Four Ancient Books of
Wales - the Black Book of Carmarthen, the
Book of Taliesin, the Book of Aneirin, and
the Red Book of Hergest - anthologies of
prose and verse of the 6th-14th centuries.
Characteristic of Welsh poetry is the bardic
system, which ensured the continuance of
traditional conventions; most celebrated of
the 12th-century bards was Cynddelw. The
English conquest of 1282 involved the fall of
the princes who supported these bards, but
after a period of decline a new school arose
in South Wales with a new freedom in form and
sentiment, the most celebrated poet in the
14th-century being Dafydd ap Gwilym, and in
the next century the classical metrist Dafydd
ap Edmwnd. With the Reformation biblical
translations were undertaken, and Morgan
Llwyd and Ellis Wynn o Lasynys wrote
religious prose. Popular metres resembling
those of England developed, for example the
poems of Huw Morys. In the 18th century the
classical poetic forms revived with Goronwy
Owen, and the Eisteddfod (song festival)
movement began: popular measures were used by
the hymn-writer William Williams. The 19th
century saw few notable figures save the
novelist Daniel Owen, but the foundation of a
Welsh university and the work there of Sir
John Morris Jones (1864-1929) produced a
20th-century revival, including Thomas Gwynn
Jones (1871-1949), W J Gruffydd (1881-1954),
and Robert Williams Parry (1884-1956). Later
poets included J Kitchener Davies (1902-52),
Saunders Lewis (1893-), and in the period
after World War II Waldo Williams (1904-71),
Euros Bowen (1904-), and Bobi Jones (1929-).
Outside Wales, those who have expressed the
Welsh spirit in English include Henry
Vaughan, Edward Thomas, Vernon Watkins
(1906-67), Dylan Thomas, and Ronald Thomas.