A Careless Poet?: Williams Pantycelyn (3)
We finish discussing the great hymnist in this episode by asking a question which might come as a surprise to most of our listeners, namely, was Pantycelyn a careless poet? We quote a number of twentieth-century scholars we suggest that, including Saunders Lewis who said that William Williams did not respect words at all. And while considering the poet’s relationship with the Welsh language we discuss his relationship with the Welsh poetic tradition, emphasizing that it is perhaps best to see it as the lack of a relationship.
We note in passing that Welsh poetry of the eighteenth century is characterized by a great deal of variety and that many different poets in the period were using the old traditional metres, although Pantycelyn ignored cynghanedd completely. Is it thus possible to say that he was the first modern poet in Wales?
Presented by: Yr Athro Jerry Hunter a’r Athro Richard Wyn Jones
Produced by: Richard Martin
Music: ‘Might Have Done’ gan The Molenes
Further Reading:
Saunders Lewis, Williams Pantycelyn (1927 [adargraffiad 1991]).