In this episode we look at a selection of poems composed by royalists during the ‘civil wars’ of the seventeenth century. We see that poets adapted old methods and themes in order to treat current developments which were shaking their world. Interestingly enough, It’s possible to suggest that political and religious conservatism generated incredibly energetic artistic innovation.
We note that even traditional modes of love poetry were adapted, as a woman sings about a parliamentarian soldier who tried to seduce her while her lover was away fighting in the king’s army. And the highpoints include a poem which imagines sending a cat on a journey across Merionethshire with a message for besieged soldiers in Harlech castle.
Cyflwynwyd gan: Yr Athro Jerry Hunter a’r Athro Richard Wyn Jones
Cynhyrchwyd gan: Richard Martin
Cerddoriaeth: ‘Might Have Done’ gan The Molenes
Darllen Pellach / Further Reading:
Hen Gerddi Gwleidyddol 1558-1660 (1901). [Golygydd di-enw ar ran Cymdeithas Llên Cymru].
Nesta Lloyd (gol.), Blodeugerdd Barddas o Ganu’r Ail Ganrif ar Bymtheg (1993).
Jerry Hunter, ‘The Red Sword, the Sickle, and the Author’s Revenge: Welsh Literature and Conflict in the Seventeenth Century’, Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium 36 (2018).
