Owen Glendower's few years of
power were a kind of prophecy; but Owen once appeared to the abbot of
Valle Crucis, so tradition says, to declare that he had come before
his time. We pass then, very gradually, from the history of a
privileged class, speaking literary Welsh, with a literature famous
for the wealth of its imagination and the artistic beauty of its
form--we pass on to the history of a peasantry, rude and ignorant at
first, retaining the servile traits of centuries of subjection, but
gradually becoming self-reliant, prosperous, and thoughtful.
The real history of a nation is shown by its literature. Its records
and its chronicles are but the notes and comments of various ages.
In the period of the princes and nobles, you can trace the rise and
decline of a great literature; watch how it gathers strength and
beauty from Cynddelw to Dafydd ap Gwilym, and how the strength begins
to fail and the beauty to wane, from Dafydd ap Gwilym to Tudur Aled.
In the period of the people, from Tudor times on, the peasants tried
at first to imitate the poetry of the past; then they began to write
and think in their own way. It is not my aim to explain the periods
of Welsh literature now; I am going to do that in another book.
Pages:
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107