Out into the Unknown: Gwyneth Lewis and Science
by Alex Pryce
Forthcoming in Poetry Wales, Autumn 2011.
This article addresses the possibilities of science in the poetry of Gwyneth Lewis with a particular focus on space... more This article addresses the possibilities of science in the poetry of Gwyneth Lewis with a particular focus on space (Zero Gravity) and medical science (A Hospital Odyssey).
Mead-Halls and Men-at-Arms: Problems of Dating and the Image of the Heroic Age
Originally given at the 'Truth and Lies' postgraduate conference at Bangor University in 2009; published in the proceedings.
Problems of dating consistently haunt modern scholars who have no way of knowing whether a text written down in the... more Problems of dating consistently haunt modern scholars who have no way of knowing whether a text written down in the fourteenth century might have been composed in the sixth,the tenth, or even later. Despite this, the enduring image of the ‘heroic age’ of early Britain has persisted, with poetry—Y Gododdin, the praise of Urien Rheged, and the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf—providing a historical canvas. Scholars pick apart the texts for clues like (and sometimes as) archaeologists, patching together what they can find into a framework built from other, equally unreliable sources. Writers of high middle ages held an equally romantic vision of the bygone age of the noble barbarian, and far less attachment to the authorship of their own work. The images of mead-halls and blood-feuds, while attested to some extent, are far from complete, though their remnants are found throughout modern popular culture. Were the scribes who saved the poems really preserving the works of the ancients, or merely the medieval version of historical fiction? Linguistically, a strong case can be made for a later date; historical attestations point to an earlier one. Care must be taken when attempting to present a firm conclusion.
'An Interview with Gwyneth Lewis'
by Alex Pryce
published in New Walk Magazine, October 2010
In this interview I questioned Welsh poet Gwyneth Lewis on the importance of gender, language and tradition to her work. In this interview I questioned Welsh poet Gwyneth Lewis on the importance of gender, language and tradition to her work.