Mentioning the connections between Angharad James and Marged Dafydd allows us to consider the fact that it is only during the past decades that Welsh academia has started giving women’s poetry the attention it deserves. We concentrate then on the work of Angharad James (1677- 1749), a multitalented Welsh woman from the Nantlle Valley who earned a reputation as a harpist, a poet and a manuscript copyist. We are charmed by the warmth and sincerity which characterizes her poetry, and while reading a poem asking a female friend to come and stay with her we suggest that it appeals to us more than a cywydd on a similar theme by her famous contemporary, Goronwy Owen. After glancing at a lively poem about marriage, we examine the emotional elegy which she composed following the death of her son. But what about the mystery of ‘The Red Book of Angharad James’?
The digital home of Welsh culture.
The digital home of Welsh culture.