Pennod 49 – Cariad, Protest ac Ideoleg Mesur: Y Canu Rhydd

Episode 49

Love, Protest and the Ideology of Meter: the Free-Meter Poetry
We begin in this episode by considering something many of us in Wales take for granted, namely the difference between Welsh-language strict-meter poetry and free-meter poetry.

We suggested that there are social and ideological dimensions to this fundamental metrical difference. We concentrate on free-meter poetry composed during the sixteenth century and early in the following century and discussing the two kinds of free-meter verse provides an opportunity to consider big questions concerning the relationship (and difference) between the old and the new and the ‘native’ and the ‘foreign’. We note that female voices appear in this new body of poetry and we look at a poem which protests passionately against the deforestation of the valleys of South Wales (and which puts the blame on ‘the English’ for this ecological destruction).