"Poets, in every language, through some
peculiar privilege of theirs,claim to
themselves the right to judge words . . .
But the writings of poets in general,
and particularly those of Welsh poets,
are such that they are incomparable
in the complexity of their sentences
and the obscurity of their words.
(dedication to the Prince of Wales,
("Dictionarium Duplex" 1632) "
http://www.britannia.com/wales/lit/lit10.html
An anonymous poet in 1627 wrote that "Wales is fading, the bards are in their graves."
As a visual footnote, I took that title for the following digital collage:
http://photos1.blogger.com/img/2/1002/1024/Wales-is-fading-web.jpg
-Peter Ciccariello
-----Original Message-----
From: Zoe Brigley <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Thu, 26 May 2005 12:09:12 +0100
Subject: Re: Poem: A Refusal To Mourn: Welsh Comparisons
Stephen asked what I meant when I mentioned the haughty tone of the Welsh bardds
and the rebuke in Dylan Thomas' poem. Thomas refuses to 'murder / The mankind of
her going with a grave truth / Nor blaspheme down the stations of the breath
/With any further /Elegy of innocence and youth'. By describing what he will not
do, Thomas rebukes those who do talk of the girl's death with a certain
pomposity and try to make her death mean something. There is a kind of
haughtiness in his tone which appears in the work of other Welsh poets.
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