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Cornish literature refers to written works in theCornish language. The earliest surviving texts are in verse and date from the 14th century. There are virtually none from the 18th and 19th centuries but writing in revived forms of Cornish began in the early 20th century.
The Prophecy of Ambrosius Merlin concerning the Seven Kings is a 12th-century poem writtenca. 1144 byJohn of Cornwall inLatin, with some of the marginal notes in Cornish. John stated that the work was a translation based on an earlier document written in the Cornish language. The manuscript of the poem, on acodex currently held at theVatican Library, is unique. It attracted little attention from the scholarly world until 1876, whenWhitley Stokes undertook a brief analysis of the Cornish and Welsh vocabulary found in John'smarginal commentary.[1] These notes are among the earliest known writings in the Cornish language.[2] In 2001 this important work was translated back into Cornish byJulyan Holmes.[3]
Pascon agan Arluth ('The Passion of our Lord'), a poem of 259 eight-line verses probably composed around 1375, is one of the earliest surviving works of Cornish literature. The most important work of literature surviving from the Middle Cornish period is the CornishOrdinalia, a 9000-line religiousverse drama which had probably reached its present form by 1400. TheOrdinalia consists of threemystery plays,Origo Mundi,Passio Christi andResurrexio Domini, meant to be performed on successive days. Such plays were performed in aPlain an Gwarry (Playing place). In 1981, theBreton library Preder edited it in modern scripture under the name ofPassyon agan arluth.
The longest single surviving work of Cornish literature isBeunans Meriasek (The Life ofMeriasek), a two-day verse drama dated 1504, but probably copied from an earlier manuscript.
Other notable pieces of Cornish literature include theCreation of the World (with Noah's Flood) which is a miracle play similar toOrigo Mundi but in a much later manuscript (1611); theCharter Fragment, a short poem about marriage, believed to be the earliest connected text in the language; andBeunans Ke, another saint's play only discovered in 2000, notable for including someArthurian material.
The earliest surviving examples of Cornish prose are the Tregear Homilies, a series of 12 Catholicsermons written in English and translated byJohn Tregear in around 1560,[4][5] to which a thirteenth homilyThe Sacrament of the Alter was added by another hand.[6] Twelve of the thirteen homilies inEdmund Bonner'sHomelies to be read within his diocese of London of all Parsons, vycars and curates (1555; ten of these were byJohn Harpsfield, two byHenry Pendleton[note 1] and one by Bonner himself)[8] were translated intoCornish byJohn Tregear, and are now the largest single work of traditional Cornish prose.[6] The thirteenth homily in the Cornish translation is taken from an unidentified source.[8]
Tregear was "not a skilled translator",[9] and often used Englishloanwords orloan translations.[6] According toAlan Kent, this could have been when Tregear was unable to remember the translation due to the significant decline in the knowledge and understanding of Cornish at the time, perhaps intending to return to correct them later.[10] The Homilies were discovered in April 1949 by John Mackechnie in the papers of thePuleston family in the collection of theBritish Museum.[4]
Nicholas Boson (1624−1708) wrote three significant texts in Cornish,Nebbaz gerriau dro tho Carnoack (A Few Words about Cornish) between 1675 and 1708;Jowan Chy-an-Horth, py, An try foynt a skyans (John of Chyannor, or, The three points of wisdom), published byEdward Lhuyd in 1707, though written earlier; andThe Dutchess of Cornwall's Progress, partly in English, now known only in fragments. The first two are the only known surviving Cornish prose texts from the 17th century. Boson's work is collected, along with that of his sonJohn Boson and his cousinThomas Boson (1635–1719) inOliver Padel'sThe Cornish writings of the Boson family (1975).[11]
Fragments of Cornish writing continued to appear as the language was becoming extinct during the 18th century. However, in the late 19th century a few works by non-native speakers were produced; these efforts were followed by a more substantial revival in the 20th and 21st centuries. Of the early pieces the most significant is the so-called "Cranken Rhyme" produced byJohn Davey ofBoswednack, one of the last people with some traditional knowledge of the language.[12][13] The poem, published byJohn Hobson Matthews in 1892, may be the last piece of traditional Cornish literature. In 1865 German language enthusiastGeorg Sauerwein composed two poems in the language. Later Hobson Matthews wrote several poems, such as the patriotic "Can Wlascar Agan Mamvro" ("Patriotic Song of our Motherland"), andRobert Morton Nance, a disciple ofHenry Jenner, created a body of verse, for example "Nyns yu Marow Myghtern Arthur" ("King Arthur is not Dead"), which concerns the popular Cornish subject ofKing Arthur's legendary immortality. Both of these writers' works are characterised by a specifically revivalist mode.[13]
In 1916 writer and poet Robert Victor Walling (1895-1976) produced the first wholly Cornish language magazine,AnHoulsedhas. Walling wrote and edited the magazine in three editions from his hospital bed in France following injuries sustained in the First World War. The magazine includes original poetry written in Cornish by Walling about the war, and poetry by other authors translated into Cornish by him or taken from preexisting Cornish works.[14]
These efforts were followed in the early 20th century by further works of revivalist literature by Cornish language enthusiasts. Works of this period were generally printed in limited publications by authors far removed from Cornwall and each other; their importance to the later revival movement was not fully recognized for decades.[13] The literary output of the Cornish revival has largely been poetry. Notable writers of the time includeEdwin Chirgwin andA. S. D. Smith, whose epic poemTrystan hag Isolt, a reworking of theTristan and Iseult legend, is one of the most celebrated pieces of Cornish revival writing.[13] Another significant early text isPeggy Pollard's 1941 playBeunans Alysaryn, modelled on the 16th-century saints' plays.[13]
This is an example of Cornish written by the hand of a native speaker[1]. The text is also interesting from a sociolinguistic point of view in that Bodinar speaks about the contemporary state of the Cornish language in 1776.
Below it is written in Bodinar's original spelling, then in modern Cornish spelling (SWF), then a translation in English:
| Bluth vee ew try egance a pemp. Thera vee dean bodgack an puscas. Me rig deskey Cornoack termen me vee mawe. Me vee de more gen seara vee a pemp dean mouy en cock. Me rig scantlower clowes eden ger Sowsnack cowes en cock rag sythen warebar. Na riga vee biscath gwellas lever Cornoack. Me deskey Cornoack moas da more gen tees coath. Nag es mouy vel pager po pemp en dreav nye ell clapia Cornoack leben, poble coath pager egance blouth. Cornoack ewe oll naceaves gen poble younk. |
The later 20th century saw increasing interest in the Cornish language and its literature, and an expansion into other media. The dearth of Cornish readers has made the production of novels difficult, though several have now been published. The earliest was Melville Bennetto'sAn Gurun Wosek a Geltya (The Bloody Crown of the Celtic Countries) in 1984; subsequently Michael Palmer published five novels includingJory (1989) andDyvroans (1998). All of these were published in Unified Cornish.[15][13]Tim Saunders andNicholas Williams are among the contemporary poets writing in Cornish. Additionally, writers such asNick Darke andAlan M. Kent have incorporated a Cornish background into English writing.[13] Others have translated foreign works into Cornish. Jowann Richards (1926-2005) produced a Cornish translation of theRubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (ISBN 0-907064-29-9) in 1990. Beginning in the 2000s, translators set about translating theBible in order to redress the handicap unique to Cornish, in that of all the modern Celtic languages, only Cornish had no Bible translation. The first complete edition of the New Testament in Cornish, Nicholas Williams's translationTestament Noweth agan Arluth ha Savyour Jesu Cryst, was published at Easter 2002 by Spyrys a Gernow (ISBN 0-9535975-4-7); it uses Unified Cornish Revised orthography. The translation was made from the Greek text, and incorporated John Tregear's existing translations with slight revisions. In August 2004,Kesva an Taves Kernewek published its edition of the New Testament in Cornish (ISBN 1-902917-33-2), translated by Keith Syed and Ray Edwards; it uses Kernewek Kemmyn orthography. It was launched in a ceremony inTruro Cathedral attended by theArchbishop of Canterbury. Translations of the entire Old and New Testaments were published in 2011 inKernowek Standard, translated by Nicholas Williams, and in 2020 inKernewek Kemmyn translated by the Cornish Bible Project.
2009 and subsequent years saw the publication of a number of novels in Cornish. Nicholas Williams's translation ofAlice's Adventures in Wonderland appeared asAlys in Pow an Anethow (ISBN 978-1-904808-19-0), as did his translation of Craig Weatherhill's novelThe Lyonesse Stone, titled in CornishJowal Lethesow (ISBN 978-1-904808-30-5). Kaspar Hocking's abridgement ofJules Verne'sAround the World in Eighty Days was published asAdro dhe'n Bÿs in Peswar Ugans Dëdh (ISBN 978-1-904808-21-3), and Eddie Foirbeis Climo'sKensa Lyver Redya (ISBN 978-1-904808-24-4) 'First Reading Book', a translation of Harriette Taylor Treadwell and Margaret Free'sPrimer, was published as well. The following years saw over a dozen classic novels translated by Nicholas Williams in his Standard Cornish orthography, includingTreasure Island (Enys Tresour) in 2010,The Hound of the Baskervilles (Ky Teylu Baskerville) in 2012,The War of the Worlds (Gwerryans an Planettys) in 2013 andThe Hobbit (An Hobys) in 2014.[16] Others appeared in Kernewek Kemmyn, such as Polin Prys'Kas ha Dial (Hate and Revenge) and theBroder Wella (Brother William) collection of short stories by Jowann Richards. The advent of the Standard Written Form in 2008 saw the translation ofSaint-Exupéry'sThe Little Prince (An Pennsevik Byhan) in 2010, and several novels byRod Lyon,Dhe Emlow an Galaksi (To the edges of the galaxy) in 2015,Tenkys (Fate) in 2016 andDicky Holla in 2017.[17]
A comprehensive list of Cornish literature including translations and original stories for adults and children can be found at the SkrifaKernewek website listed below.
