SCHOLARSHIP
Guest was ably assisted in her translation research by Thomas ‘Carnhuanawc’ Price, and John ‘Tegid’ Jones, as her Welsh associates and advisers.[1]Scholars of Welsh literature have a long tradition of adopting bardic names. She made use of William Pughe’s Dictionary,[2]Pughe, William Owen. 1803. A Dictionary of the Welsh Language, Explained in English; with Numerous Illustrations from the Literary Remains and from the Living Speech of the Cymry 2 Vols. First Part Published 1793. Vol. 2. 2 vols. London: E. Williams. but she did not have access to his own manuscript translations of the Mabinogi, and her work does not derive from the selections which Pughe did publish.
The source text Guest used was the Llyfr Goch Hergest, as the Llyfr Gwyn Rhydderch was not yet available.
Her prose reads excellently even today, with flow and coherence. A few specific passages were deleted for publication, namely explicit sexual content, quite likely by her publisher in deference to the respectability canon of their times especially about a ‘lady author.’
Her title “The Mabinogion” later became recognised as a mediaeval copyist mistake, but that was well after her time. In the 19thC “The Mabinogion” was how the stories were collectively named.[3]The Mabinogion is generally considered to be eleven tales. Part of this group is the Four Branches of the Mabinogi. Since then the name ‘Mabinogi’ has become formally accepted as belonging to the Four Branches only.
The Guest translations have been subjected to an extraordinary degree of criticism. Some of this is the predictable reaction to a monolithic work. Some is sexist, as it is difficult for some thinkers to accept a woman achieving all Charlotte Guest did, which still operates even today. She is dismissed for example as ‘charming’ by a later translator attempting to dislodge her pre-eminence, in which the Jones partnership largely succeeded.[4]Jones, Gwyn and Jones, Thomas. 1949. The Mabinogion. Everyman. London: J. M. Dent.
She is accused by that team, and by various others, of misunderstandiing the tales as children’s literature. She did record her dedication in the books to her children, and wrote in her journal of reading the stories to them and to her friends as well. Children’s stories do not typically include scholarly footnotes, as Sioned Davies and Donna White both remark.
Further ‘crimes’ of Charlotte Guest are itemised in Donna Rae White’s two papers, 1995 and 1997, with deconstruction.
A balanced critique of Guest’s opus has yet to appear. Her detractors’ extremities, other lazy commenters who unthinkingly repeat their mistakes, and the spirited defenses they provoke, can be balanced, but have not been compiled in one account.
SYNONYMS
ALSO
« Library IndexNOTES
| 1. | ⇑ | Scholars of Welsh literature have a long tradition of adopting bardic names. |
| 2. | ⇑ | Pughe, William Owen. 1803. A Dictionary of the Welsh Language, Explained in English; with Numerous Illustrations from the Literary Remains and from the Living Speech of the Cymry 2 Vols. First Part Published 1793. Vol. 2. 2 vols. London: E. Williams. |
| 3. | ⇑ | The Mabinogion is generally considered to be eleven tales. Part of this group is the Four Branches of the Mabinogi. |
| 4. | ⇑ | Jones, Gwyn and Jones, Thomas. 1949. The Mabinogion. Everyman. London: J. M. Dent. |