Dafydd ap Gwilym is regarded as one of the leading Welsh

Welsh people

The Welsh people are an ethnic group and nation associated with Wales and the Welsh language.John Davies argues that the origin of the "Welsh nation" can be traced to the late 4th and early 5th centuries, following the Roman departure from Britain, although Brythonic Celtic languages seem to have...

 poets and amongst the great poets of Europe in the Middle Ages

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

. (Dafydd ap Gwilym scholar R. Geraint Gruffydd

R. Geraint Gruffydd

Professor Emeritus R. Geraint Gruffydd , MA DPhil DLitt FLSW FBA is a scholar of Welsh language and literature. He is a graduate of Bangor University and Jesus College, Oxford He commenced his studies at Oxford in 1948...

 suggests ca.1315-ca.1350 as his dates; other scholars place him a little later, ca.1320-ca.1370.)

Life

Tradition has it that he was born at Brogynin, Penrhyn-coch (at the time Llanbadarn Fawr

Llanbadarn Fawr

Llanbadarn Fawr is an urbanised village and community in Ceredigion, Wales. It is located on the outskirts of Aberystwyth situated next to Penparcau and Southgate. It forms the eastern part of the continually built-up area of Aberystwyth...

 parish), Ceredigion

Ceredigion

Ceredigion is a county and former kingdom in mid-west Wales. As Cardiganshire , it was created in 1282, and was reconstituted as a county under that name in 1996, reverting to Ceredigion a day later...

. His father, Gwilym Gam, and mother, Ardudfyl, were both from noble

Nobility

Nobility is a social class which possesses more acknowledged privileges or eminence than members of most other classes in a society, membership therein typically being hereditary. The privileges associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles, or may be...

 families. As one of noble birth it seems Dafydd did not belong to the guild of professional poets in medieval Wales, and yet the poetic tradition had been strong in his family for generations.

According to R. Geraint Gruffydd he died in 1350, a possible victim of the Black Death

Black Death

The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. Of several competing theories, the dominant explanation for the Black Death is the plague theory, which attributes the outbreak to the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Thought to have...

. Tradition says that he was buried within the precinct of the Cistercian Strata Florida Abbey

Strata Florida Abbey

Strata Florida Abbey Flowers. Ystrad corrupts into Strata, while Fflur is the name of the nearby river. After the region around St. David's was firmly occupied by the Norman Marcher lordship of Pembroke by the early 12th century, with St...

, Ceredigion

Ceredigion

Ceredigion is a county and former kingdom in mid-west Wales. As Cardiganshire , it was created in 1282, and was reconstituted as a county under that name in 1996, reverting to Ceredigion a day later...

.

Poetry

It is believed that about one hundred and seventy of his poems have survived, though many others have been attributed to him over the centuries. His main themes were love and nature. The influence of wider European ideas of courtly love

Courtly love

Courtly love was a medieval European conception of nobly and chivalrously expressing love and admiration. Generally, courtly love was secret and between members of the nobility. It was also generally not practiced between husband and wife....

, as exemplified in the troubadour

Troubadour

A troubadour was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages . Since the word "troubadour" is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a trobairitz....

 poetry of Provençal

Provence

Provence ; Provençal: Provença in classical norm or Prouvènço in Mistralian norm) is a region of south eastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur...

, is seen as a significant influence on Dafydd's poetry.

He was an innovative poet who was responsible for popularising the metre known as the "cywydd

Cywydd

The cywydd is one of the most important metrical forms in Welsh traditional poetry.There are a variety of forms of the cywydd, but the word on its own is generally used to refer to the cywydd deuair hirion as it is by far the most common type.The first recorded examples of the cywydd date from the...

" and first to use it for praise. But perhaps his greatest innovation was to make himself the main focus of his poetry. By its very nature, most of the work of the traditional Welsh court poets kept their own personalities far from their poetry. Dafydd's work is full of his own feelings and experiences. His main theme is love, and many of his poems are addressed to women, but particularly to two of them, Morfudd and Dyddgu. He is also recognised as very fine nature poet. His best-known works include the following poems:

• Morfudd fel yr haul (Morfudd like the sun), a poem to the wife of an Aberystwyth
  Aberystwyth
  Aberystwyth is a historic market town, administrative centre and holiday resort within Ceredigion, Wales. Often colloquially known as Aber, it is located at the confluence of the rivers Ystwyth and Rheidol....
  
   merchant who seems to have had a long affair with Dafydd, and whom he addressed in many poems;
• Merched Llanbadarn (The girls of Llanbadarn), in which he speaks of going to church on Sunday purely in order to ogle the local women;
• Trafferth mewn tafarn (Trouble in a tavern), in which he recounts an incident in a tavern that would be worthy of any slapstick film;
• Y Rhugl Groen (The Rattle Bag), in which Dafydd's intercourse with a young girl is cruelly interrupted; and
• Cywydd y gal (A poem in praise of the penis), a risqué piece of pure medieval erotica
  Erotica
  Erotica are works of art, including literature, photography, film, sculpture and painting, that deal substantively with erotically stimulating or sexually arousing descriptions...
  
  . Until recently not anthologised as Dafydd's for reason of editorial squeamishness.

According to Charles Johnston's explanatory notes on the Astrée / Naïve CD 'Beethoven: Irish, Welsh & Scottish Songs' (2001), the words to WoO155 '26 wallisische Lieder', Nr.14 'Der Traum' (1810), were "translated from the Welsh of Dafydd ap Gwilym". This would be Dafydd's dream-vision poem 'Y Breuddwyd'.

See also

• Welsh literature
  Literature of Wales (Welsh language)
  After literature written in the classical languages literature in the Welsh language is the oldest surviving literature in Europe. The Welsh literary tradition stretches from the 6th century to the twenty-first. Its fortunes have fluctuated over the centuries, in line with those of the Welsh...
  
  
• List of Welsh language poets
• Dafydd ap Gwilym at Wikisource

External links

• Dafydd ap Gwilym and Welsh literary tradition on the BBC History website.
• Trafferth Mewn Tafarn - Two English translations of Dafydd ap Gwilym's 'Trafferth Mewn Tafarn'
• Mis Mai a Mis Ionawr - An English translation of Dafydd ap Gwilym's 'Mis Mai a Mis Ionawr'
• A new edition of the work of Dafydd ap Gwilym by a team of academics from the University of Wales