Cyfryngau ein Llen [trans. Welsh Literature and Media]

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Many Welsh departments now teach modules on both literature, drama and film, and in many academic institutions such as Swansea University the emphasis is on cross-disciplinary research. I hope to bring together academic interests which thus far have been kept separate in Welsh-medium research publications, although curricular changes at school and university level suggest that such a study is long overdue.The study aims to apply aspects of cultural theory to literary, radio and film texts. The choice of texts is catholic, and it must be noted that this study is not a series of unrelated essays, but an exploration into the relationship between orality and writing, questioning what constitutes a text. In this respect, it follows Sioned Davies' 'Crefft y Cyfarwydd' (1995), which applied the latest international research in the field of oral literature to the Welsh medieval texts of the Mabinogion. In a similar vein, this study will apply to Welsh criticism aspects of international performance and post-structuralist theories which challenge the exclusive right of the text to its meaning.In the past ten years, many writers in both England and America have suggested that we are now writing in a period of 'after theory'. The present study too acknowledges that a similar mood exists in Wales. However, as can be seen from the collection of essays presented in 'Llenyddiaeth Mewn Theori' (2006), and the rebirth of 'Ysgrifau Beirniadol' (2007), there is a new interest in producing a rich and invigorating dialogue between textual analysis and cultural theory.The study aims firstly to establish why critics in the first half of the twentieth century placed such emphasis on the text. In looking at the emergence of authoritative editions of canonical texts in Welsh, the study will discuss their cultural significance in terms of the relationship between textuality and nationalism, drawing upon recent research in the field of post-colonial theory. In contrast to the privileged position afforded to the written text in Welsh literary criticism by scholars such as Ifor Williams and Thomas Parry, the study will consider other ways of reading which have destabilised the text, including both performance theory and post-structuralism. In view of this shift in critical theory over the past fourty years, the study will explore the relationship between orality and writing in four 'texts', two of which pre date the emergence of printed texts in Welsh, two of which are radio and film texts. The study will examine the relationship between orality and writing in relation to the 6th century poet Taliesin, the 15th century poet Lewys Glyn Cothi, Saunders Lewis' radio plays, and the Oscar nominated films 'Hedd Wyn' and 'Solomon and Gaenor' - all of which have either been subjects of papers, articles, chapters or lectures of mine in the past six years.The study has been accepted by John Rowlands, general editor for the series, 'Y Meddwl a'r Dychymyg Cymreig', University of Wales Press. It aims to bridge the divide between cultural theorists and literary scholars, and suggest a suitable model for appraising new texts of international standing which are not literary, but which have much in common with oral mediaeval literature, in that they exemplify the complex relationship between orality and writing.