Welsh Journals

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Generally speaking, there is evidence of a swing from the standards of the preceding period, so largely dominated by the purist teaching of Sir John Morris Jones and his school. Some of the poets who actually belong to the former period have shown a tenency to drop verse as their medium, or to become sensitively critical, even to the extent of parodying some of their own earlier productions. To enjoy such self-critic- ism, one need not even accept Williams Parry's tendencies as determining the value of his own glorious "Summer" poem, which, happen what may, will live for ever and demonstrate to every competent reader the author's supreme originality. Other writers seem to rebel against the strictly native forms and to consider the principle of Cynghanedd as merely an orna- ment of descriptive or conventional verse. Over- adornment it may most certainly become, but that it leads to greater conventionality than the attempt to imitate the metrical peculiarities of the English, or any other language which may be deemed to be superior, will not stand the test of criticism. Prose works of a strictly literary character have not been numerous during the period. They are mostly restricted to fiction, short essays, lit- erary studies and criticism. Although early Welsh prose as an instrument can critically be shown to have excelled all other contemporary prose in Europe from the standpoint of clarity and suppleness, some modern criticism seems to show that there are Welshmen who believe that prose only began with the attempted Latinisation of the language in the 16th century. Hence per- haps, the present day efforts to make of the language a useless burden to those who have already to read an increasing number of lang- uages, and a terror to those who may be re- stricted to the use of it. Of a good deal of the later technical material all that need be said here is that anyone who can read other languages will probably be content to save time and some other things by continuing to do so. The essay is a new literary form introduced during our period, the immediate pattern being what is known as the "English Essay," for imitations of which prizes have frequently been offered. He who may deplore servile imitation does not thereby necessarily mean to suggest that the admitted pattern is not admirable. One would rather like to see a natural develop- ment, which might be allowed to remind us oc- casionally of other forms, as all writing must, without inviting us simply to imitate. It is a positive pleasure to add that in his "Ysgrifau," which belong to our period, Parry Williams has given us the thing without the imitation, a per- formance of rare originality and excellence. Among other writers who have contributed to the supply of original prose, mention must be made of W. J. Gruffydd, who has given us such in- timate and delightful pictures of his own youth, and R. T. Jenkins, whose critical articles, on lit- erature and life in particular, have signalled the coming of a new epoch. Other works which have enriched the prose productions of the period include the brilliant theorist studies of Saunders Lewis and the re- freshing picture of life to be found in Hugh Evans' "Cwm Eithin." In fiction, the output has not been large. Tegla Davies, "Gwr Pen y Bryn," with a number of shorter tales by him, and Saunders Lewis' "Monica" form the principal contributions, all of which were accorded a somewhat mixed recep- tion at the hands of the critics. The short story, which had already started to develop in the pre- ceding period, in the hands of Richard Hughes Williams and others, apparently known only to an occasional student, has given us the admirable character studies of Kate Roberts. One wonders that, in a land where there are so many critics, perfectly prepared to teach the novelists how to do their work, there should be such a small number of attempts to benefit from their youthfully absolute competence. Instead of that, the novelists generally seem to have discovered the impossibility of producing fiction of a worthy character without the opportunity of devoting several years exclusively to one effort. Having made that discovery, which they call a "trasiedi," some of them have become critics of what little fiction there is, or lecturers on the total absence of fiction. Another widely accepted critical belief seems to have been fatal, namely that good fiction cannot possibly be produced without finding or imagin- ing some type of monstrosity with which to deal and this with such absolute cruelty that one may not on any account sympathize with the poor rascal or try to save him. If one does that, one becomes a preacher, which seems to be a great sin against the canons of fiction. Even as things stand, I am prepared to admit that I should be glad if there were in Welsh more fiction of the type that does not pretend to be any- thing but story-telling, even if there had to be less poetry and none of the criticism designed to show that there is no criticism in Wales-a some- what self-evident fact. It has not been my lot ever to have met any very horrible people in Wales. I suppose there are some such people, as there must be in all countries, but, as a mere reader, I cannot take admitted studies of imagin- ary creations as evidence of anything but the state of the author's own mind, and in any case, I prefer the person-parson, perhaps-who is anxious to save my poor soul. And I know that even a sermon can be literature too, if the parson