tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post115047579510224585..comments2024-03-10T20:46:19.274-04:00Comments on In the Middle: Talking animalsCord J. Whitakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06224143153295429986noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-1154546241221480302006-08-02T15:17:00.000-04:002006-08-02T15:17:00.000-04:00I've loved the notion of the oldest animals since ...I've loved the notion of the oldest animals since I first bumbled over the lines translated in (if memory serves) one of those Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes anthologies of poetry. <BR/><BR/>In the broadest terms, these oldest creatures evoke a sense that the world is a far more ancient place than any human adventure. And also, I suppose, to hint that the country in which the story occurs sits at the centre of that older world.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-1150679506507840542006-06-18T21:11:00.000-04:002006-06-18T21:11:00.000-04:00His mouth unable to wrap itself around the Welsh h...His mouth unable to wrap itself around the Welsh he so desperately wants to employ, JJC instead shouts "Mis en abyme!" and second's Karl's notion that the idea of foundations ad infinitum might just be a weary, very medieval way of speculating there is no originary moment.<BR/><BR/>Great piece, JKW.Jeffrey Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17346504393740520542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-1150551037560651492006-06-17T09:30:00.000-04:002006-06-17T09:30:00.000-04:00Karl: That sounds quite interesting--I'll check on...Karl: That sounds quite interesting--I'll check on the Welsh translation. And, yes, you have heard a version of this before (in its entirety) at Med Guild late last year. You might recall that we went to the Dive Bar afterwards.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-1150498846262119232006-06-16T19:00:00.000-04:002006-06-16T19:00:00.000-04:00Nice work JKW. Have I read a version of that paper...Nice work JKW. Have I read a version of that paper before?<BR/><BR/>Not that it's directly of use to you, but I can't help but think of the early 14th c. Anglo-Norman Des Grantz Geanz, where a group of exiled, frustrated murderers (all women) find that their rudderless boat has deposited them on Albion (so named from the oldest sister, Albina). They quickly survey the island and discover "nothing human there." But they do discover that the land is full of birds, beasts, and natural beauty. There's a tension--that poststructuralist olde daunce--here between the emptiness of the island and its richness. Again, not that it directly touches of your piece, but something that I don't have the time to analyze resonated.<BR/><BR/>And I think DGG was translated, in addition to English and Latin, into Welsh. You may want to check that out. So far as I know, there's little or no work on the Welsh version of it.Karl Steelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03353370018006849747noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-1150487021226942672006-06-16T15:43:00.000-04:002006-06-16T15:43:00.000-04:00Eileen: Thanks very much for this book tip. I'm k...Eileen: Thanks very much for this book tip. I'm keen to see what early English archaeology might say about the overlapping British identities that still seem very much present in later Welsh texts.<BR/><BR/>Patricia: Diolch yn fawr! I just recently got hold of that Sims-Williams article--I had to get a photocopy from Harvard, as the book is so obscure (Odense University Press!) that no one in New York had it. His is a very useful article indeed, and I've used him to think about Macsen Wledig, about whom I'll be presenting a paper at Leeds next month (and about which I shall be posting on this blog before too long).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-1150483211512884192006-06-16T14:40:00.000-04:002006-06-16T14:40:00.000-04:00Sh'mae JKW! O'n i wedi darllen eich post chi gyda ...Sh'mae JKW! O'n i wedi darllen eich post chi gyda ddiddordeb iawn . . . it's great to see Middle Welsh represented here! P. P. Simms-Williams has an article (admittedly a little older, but not perhaps outdated) "Some Functions of Origin Stories in Early Medieval Wales," in History and Heroic Tale: A Symposium (1985). He argues that the medieval Welsh conception of history was based on the substratum of the mythic unity of Britain, but as continually shattered by a series of invasions (gormesoedd)- comparable to a similar idea in the Irish Lebor Gabála Érenn. His conclusion about the function of such a framework is different from yours, but it might be interesting to take a look at his essay as you continue to consider constructions of political identity in these texts. Pob hwyl! PatriciaAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-1150482242338415672006-06-16T14:24:00.000-04:002006-06-16T14:24:00.000-04:00JKW--welcome as JJC's guest blogger. You're doing ...JKW--welcome as JJC's guest blogger. You're doing an incredible job already. I have to say up front that I know nothing--NOTHINK! [to quote a certain character from "Hogan's Heroes"]--about Welsh literature [unless you count Maurice Walsh, who is my great uncle, and author of "The Quiet Man," and we can't really count him because he was Irish and not Welsh, but, to quote Bart Simpson, "what's the diff?"]. Which brings me to the one way in which I hope I *can* contribute to your very interesting ideas re: the animal "polity" in "Culhwch and Olwen." At the end of your paper you write that you want to challenge the notion of a pre-Arthurian Britain "unified, primeval, Welsh-speaking polity" that may have never been there. In this [albeit, tentative] argument, you would be well supported by much of the thinking that is emerging in early English archaeology [or what might be called the new-ish field of processural ethnoarchaeology], where, more and more, the "culture-history" approach is being overturned in favor of methodology that seeks to delineate the heterogeneous, "overlapping identities," mixed nature of early social groups--politically-formed and otherwise. In case you have't yet dipped yourself into these waters, here is one title that will get you started:<BR/><BR/>William O. Frazer and Andrew Tyrell, eds., "Social Identity in Early Medieval Britain" (London, 2000)<BR/><BR/>The individual chapters, plus all of the footnotes, will give you ample room for further reflection on the ideas in your paper.<BR/><BR/>Cheers, EileenAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com