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School of Welsh

Harvard Professor of Celtic Studies visits School of Welsh

Professor Catherine McKenna recently visited the School of Welsh at University of Wales, Bangor. 

Image of Professor Catherine McKenna and Dr Jerry HunterA successor to Professor Patrick Ford, she was appointed Margaret Brooks Robinson Professor of Celtic Languages and Literatures in Harvard University in July 2005.  Her visit served as a means to strengthen the special relationship that already exists between the two academic centres.  During her visit, she led a research seminar which drew upon the academic expertise contained within the School of Welsh.  Her discussion centred upon ‘Marwnad Gruffudd ap Cynan’ (‘The elegy of Gruffudd ap Cynan’) by Meilyr Brydydd, a poem co-edited by Professor Peredur Lynch – a current member of the School of Welsh - and the late Professor J.E. Caerwyn Williams – a previous head of the Department of Welsh at Bangor. 

Image of Catherine Mckenna with research students Janice Jones and Bryn JonesThe authoritative edition of the elegy, which dates from the first half of the twelfth century, may be found in Gwaith Meilyr Brydydd a’i Ddisgynyddion (‘The work of Meilyr Brydydd and his descendants’), part of the Poets of the Princes Series prepared by the University of Wales Centre For Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies.  Professor McKenna herself took part in the same ambitious project and has edited the poems of  Llywelyn Fardd II which are contained within Gwaith Dafydd Benfras ac Eraill o Feirdd Hanner Cyntaf y Drydedd Ganrif ar Ddeg (‘The work of Dafydd Benfras and other poets from the first half of the thirteenth century’).

Image of Professor Catherine Mckenna with Dr Jerry Hunter and Professor Peredur LynchCoincidentally, the most recent edition of Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium has just been published.  Volumes XVIII (1998) and XIX (1999) contain printed versions of papers originally presented during the annual Harvard Celtic Colloquium and include Dr Jerry Hunter’s Vernam Hall Lecture, ‘The Literary Nation: Textual Constructions of Welsh Nationhood c. 1282 to 1997’; Emeritus Professor Gwyn Thomas’s ‘Translating Dafydd ap Gwilym’; and Professor Gerwyn Wiliams’s ‘Liberating the Welsh Novel’.

‘Marwnad Gruffudd’ is translated as ‘Elegy for Gruffudd ap Cynan’ in Patrick F. Ford, The Celtic Poets: Songs and Tales from Early Ireland and Wales (Belmont, Mass.: Ford & Bailie, 1999).

For more information regarding Professor Catherine McKenna, click here.

For more information regarding The Department of Celtic Languages and Literatures at HarvardUniversity, click here.

For more details regarding Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium: Volume XVIII, 1998 & Volume XIX (1999),click here.