Looking for rare Welsh books in Los Angeles

Los Angeles is an unusual place to search for Welsh books and manuscripts. And yet, in the L.A. suburb of Pasadena, the beautifully manicured gardens and pristine Mediterranean-style buildings of the Huntington Library house one of North America’s largest collections of rare books and manuscripts from Britain

Sound and control in Welsh poetry (c. 1300-c. 1600)

This thesis connects the fields of sound studies and medieval Welsh history and literature. In doing so, it argues two related points. Firstly, by using the poetry of ‘Beirdd yr Uchelwyr’ (the Poets of the Nobility, c. 1300–c. 1600) as a case study, it demonstrates that much new and nuanced meaning can be unveiled by listening carefully to the sounds represented in a body of medieval literature. In this sense, it is the first attempt to apply the theories and methods of sound studies systematically to literature in a Celtic language. Secondly, in assessing some of these new meanings, it shows the relevance of several aspects of medieval scientific thought concerning sound, especially the importance of controlling ‘sound’ lest it become ‘noise’; meaningful sound was controlled sound. It argues that Welsh poets’ concern with control was partly a reaction to social and environmental change. Poets felt threatened by aspects of colonisation, urbanisation, and mechanisation caused by the Edwardian Conquest, and wider European trends. Anxious that patrons were turning elsewhere, poets emphasised the exceptionalism of their controlled and refined Welsh, especially their strict-metre poetry. This anxiety was projected onto the wider auditory world. Acceptable sounds – holy bellringing, the Latin language, beautiful harps – were described in terms of control, while unacceptable noises – minstrels, foreign vernaculars, crwth music – were described in terms of disorder. Overall, this thesis argues for the importance of listening to all aspects of premodern literature, particularly the highly aural poetry of medieval Wales. Before industrialised, mechanised, and electrified sounds, and before sight became the primary means to access truth and knowledge, hearing was just as important as seeing. An aural-sensitive reading reveals several new meanings in this body of poetry produced by anxious and conservative listeners attempting to control a changing world with a changing place for poets