Breton poetry: from bards to verlibra

Despite the Youth fashion for Celtic music and songs of Celtic peoples, even an advanced lover, first of all, first of all, are first of all, but not high poetry of Celtic peoples are known. Only the lazy Folker did not sang the Breton song about the sidra. But who is interested in a very peculiar and more interesting poetic tradition of the Bretons, which is rooted in the scientific poetry of the Middle Ages, which, in turn, continues the traditions of the poetry of bards? Unless researchers. The Bard of the Celts is not only a poet, a singer, praising the acts of powerful rulers and reproaching enemies. This is the owner of sacred knowledge endowed with magical power. In Ireland, where very archaic forms of social relations have been preserved for a long time, bards were very influential characters. And if now everyone can offend the poet, then the ancient Irish bard could, in response to an insult to send such damage that the offender forever parted with health, an attractive appearance, or even social status. In addition, laws protected the honor and dignity of poets, many of whom belonged to the highest strata of society, up to royal families. Depending on the skill acquired in the process of study in special bardial schools, poets were divided into categories. The higher the category, the more poems the bard knew by heart and the more complex works he could create. The venerable bards served in the royal courtyards, and their main duty was to compose songs that glorify the patron, for which the latter did not skimp on rewards. At the lower stage of the poetic hierarchy stood wandering bards, whose earnings depended in many ways on successful meetings with grateful listeners. Initially, poetry was an exclusively oral genre. The training took place in a room without windows, in pitch darkness, where nothing could distract the poet. The darkness also had sacred meaning. The image of a blind poet with a special internal vision is found not only in the Celts. Those who were lucky to have good vision had to partially sacrifice them partially: to strengthen their gift, some bards pushed their left eyes. It was believed that the left side was turned into another world and, depriving one eye of the opportunity to see the white light, the poet opened the opportunity to see another world.

The Britons and the Anglo-Saxon conquest was similar in a similar way. The works of the British bards of Anyarin, Talesin and Llivarha Hen have survived to this day, describing the struggle of the Britons with the Angles and the Saxons. Initially, these works existed orally, and they were recorded several centuries after their creation. The exact dates of the compositions of these works to this day cause discussions among researchers of ancient -naval poetry. One of the first specialists in the medieval Welsh literature and the Welsh Language Sir Ivon Williams back in the 20s of the last century attributed the moment of creating the most ancient poems known to us in the ancient Nevalian (direct continuation of Britt) by the end of the VI century and VII century. Later, his point of view was either refuted or supported, but one thing is clear: the Britons at the time they divide them into three now resilients - Welsh, Cornets and Bretons - there was very archaic poetry with a complex metric built on a whole system of alliterations.

A lot is known about Welsh poetry. The traditions of the British bards were transmitted from generation to generation, and were observed so strictly that the moment came when the poetic language became practically incomprehensible to anyone except the authors themselves. Trying to equal the ancient poets, the poets of subsequent centuries used obsolete words and turns, unfamiliar to listeners. When the incomprehensibility of the poetic text has reached a critical limit, the need for the reform of the poetic language has risen. In the middle of the XIV century, the talented poet David Ap Gvilim created a new poetic size called Kivid and a new genre of Welsh poetry, whose language was close to the conversational language of that time. In addition, not without the influence of courteous poetry, he created a new genre for the Welsh: lyrical poems about love for a woman. At the same time, the feelings of the hero of his poems did not come down to adoration from afar, but were completely mundane. However, by irony, the poets of the subsequent centuries, equal to the AP Gwilim, imitated the language of his era, which led exactly to the same number of obsolete words and revolutions and to the same darkness of the poetic language with which AP Gvilim fought at one time. After Wales joining England, Welsh Know began to adopt English habits, and court bards gradually lost their prestige. This did not mean the disappearance of Welsh poetry, but significantly reduced its level. At the same time, on the other side of the La-Channel Strait, the descendants of the Britons, who fled from the Angles and the Saxons and moved from sin away to the Armorric Peninsula (current Brittany), also retained their poetic traditions. It is difficult to establish the reason why we have not reached a single name of the Breton bard. It is possible that the social status of a bard in Brittany was less high than in Wales, but there are no facts at the disposal of the researchers that could confirm or refute this assumption. Be that as it may, the first poetic text in the Breton language, which has survived to this day, dates back to the middle of the XIV century, the era of the AP Gwilim, and in spirit is also close to the poetry of the Great Welsh: we are talking about the hero’s languishing before love:

... an G Uen Heng Uen am la ouen as an hegar at anhc at glas ... Mar Ham Guam Guo Rant Va Kar Ant Da Vout in N OS HE C OS Tit Uam Gar et Nep Pr et ...

... White, smiling, pleased me, friendly, blue -eyed ... If my love promises me to spend the night next to her, an ever -beloved woman ...

These several lines recorded on the fields of the Latin manuscript cannot be considered a masterpiece, but a complex system of repeating syllables is striking in the eye. These alliterations, or internal rhymes, are a business card of the so -called scientific Breton poetry. Judging by the influence of the Breton poems, under the name of LE, they had on French literature of the 12th century, we can assume the existence of a centuries -old tradition of poetic schools in Brittany. But there are no information about these schools, nor the poetic works recorded until the XIV century, nor the authors have nor names. With texts in Breton language, a paradoxical story took place: a huge mass of works of the period of decline in literature in Breton language has reached us; Starting from the 16th century, a mysterious amount of the longing of mysteries and instructive texts appears. And the famous Breton Leu about Tristan and Isolde and Knights of the Round Table, who inspired Mary of the French and her contemporaries, are lost. Nevertheless, even in the late texts, the skill of poets can be able to give rise to hundreds and thousands of lines, withstanding complex schemes of internal and final rhymes, strictly observed until the second half of the 17th century. The principle of Breton versification is as follows: the penultimate syllable rhymes with its own cesura (rhythmic pause in the verse):

Meur a un a zo souz an et

If the line is long, then to the pause, and after it in each half of the line, this principle is observed:

Myr et na Sonn et gu yc un Guer yc byzv yqu en

The final rhyme of the first two lines becomes internal in the third and fourth lines, and the final rhyme of the third and fourth lines becomes internal in the subsequent ones, and so on. It is clear that it was not easy to follow such a scheme throughout the huge poem or play, and often the authors (usually anonymous) used “blanks”, wandering from the work to the work of phrases that already contain prepared internal rhyme such as Credet Certen - “believe it, that's for sure”. Another good way to fill the holes in the diagram of internal and external rhymes is to use the Breton word and French in a row with the same meaning. The farther, the more often Breton poets used French words in their works, and not only to withstand the necessary poetic size. If in the XII century Breton literature fed French, then from the 17th century the first fell into decay and began to experience an increasing influence of the second.

The composition of verses in the Breton language since the 17th century became only the entertainment of educated Bretons during leisure hours, but not the work of specially trained masters of their craft.

An attempt to revive interest in Breton poetry was the publication of the Barzaz Breiz collection (details in the Trv-Hunus No. 160, “Celtic ballads and scandal for a whole century” [1] .- Ed. ), But this attempt cannot be considered successful. Only in the twentieth century did urban intellectuals, inspired by the Welsh tradition of poetic competitions, and a kind of game in bards, very successfully took root in the Welsh tradition. In 1928, the literary magazine in the Breton language "Gavarn" ("North-West") was created. Young writers who wanted to create works in the Breton language united around the teacher of the University of Brest, Rapraz Emone. They not only created original works, but also translated the best examples of world literature into Breton. Thus, a new type of poetry was created, which, however, lovers to study medieval Breton texts no, no, no, and internal rhymes weaved. In parallel with these, there was a naive and sincere rural poetry, which grew out of folklore and sung by the charms of rural life. The most famous representative of rural poetry is the farmber Angela Duval, who, after a hard day, took a student notebook, a pencil and wrote cute good verses that published Breton literary magazines with pleasure. However, at the beginning of the third millennium, such poetry is already irrelevant, and the very concept of traditional poetic forms is a thing of the past. And if in Wales it is sometimes still customary to observe strictly specified poetic sizes (of course, not as difficult as that of the old bards!), Then the Bretons try to keep up with the times and new trends. Writing poetry, constraining themselves with the framework of rhymes and sizes, is no longer comme il faut, so most modern poets prefer Verlibr. Now the poet in Wales and Brittany no longer has any sacred power, no one will order laudatory odes or be afraid of poetic curses. Moreover, the Welsh and especially Breton poets do not have to count on a wide reader's audience. But, despite this, there are those who want a poetic tradition, laid down by the bards of antiquity, continue to live and develop.

1. Http://trv-science.ru/2014/08/12/keltskie-ballady-i-skandal-na-slyjjjj-over