Gwyn Jones | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1907-05-24)24 May 1907 |
| Died | 6 December 1999(1999-12-06) (aged 92) |
| Occupation | Writer, scholar |
| Notable works |
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Gwyn Jones CBE (24 May 1907 – 6 December 1999) was aWelsh novelist and story writer, and a scholar and translator ofNordic literature andhistory.
Gwyn Jones was born on 24 May 1907 inNew Tredegar, Monmouthshire, the second child of George Henry Jones (1874–1970), a miner, and his second wife, Lily Florence, née Nethercott (1877–1960), a midwife. He was brought up in nearbyBlackwood. He attended Tredegar county school and studied atUniversity College, Cardiff as an undergraduate and a postgraduate.[1]
After six years he was a schoolteacher inWigan and Manchester, in 1935 he returned to University College, Cardiff as a lecturer. In 1940 was appointed Professor of English of theUniversity College of Wales, Aberystwyth, where he taught until his appointment as Professor of English atUniversity College, Cardiff in 1964, a position he held until his retirement in 1975.[2][3][4][1]
In 1939 Jones registered as aconscientious objector to military service, which temporarily caused him to lose his job. Jones was a socialist, although never a member of the Labour Party, and was sympathetic to the aims ofPlaid Cymru. He was an active Christian and attendedMinny Street Chapel in Cardiff, a Welsh-language congregational chapel.[4]
Jones married twice: in 1928 to Alice Rees (1906/7–1979), and 1979 to Mair Jones, née Sivell (1923/4–2000), the widow of Thomas Jones, his collaborator onThe Mabinogion.[1]
Jones' translations includeFour Icelandic Sagas (1935),The Vatndalers' Saga (1944),TheMabinogion (1948, in collaboration with Thomas Jones),Egil's Saga (1960),Eirik the Red and Other Icelandic Sagas (1961) andThe Norse Atlantic Saga (1964). He also wroteA History of the Vikings (1968) andKings, Beasts, and Heroes (1972).[4]
In addition to his translations, he was an author in theAnglo-Welsh tradition. His novels and story collections includeRichard Savage (1935),Times Like These (1936),The Nine Days' Wonder (1937) andGarland of Bays (1938),The Buttercup Field (1945),The Flowers beneath the Scythe (1952),Shepherd's Hey (1953) andThe Walk Home (1962).
Jones also foundedThe Welsh Review in 1939, which he edited until 1948; this journal was important for raising discussion of Welsh issues and for attracting submissions from such authors asT. S. Eliot andJ. R. R. Tolkien,[4] whoseBreton lay,The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun, he published in 1945.[5] He continued to support Welsh literature by chairing both the Welsh Committee of theArts Council of Great Britain and the first editorial board ofThe Oxford Companion to the Literature of Wales. In 1977 he edited theOxford Book of Welsh Verse in English.[6] He also published three sets of lectures on Anglo-Welsh literature:The First Forty Years (1957),Being and Belonging (1977), andBabel and the Dragon's Tongue (1981).
In 1963 Jones was awarded the Knight's Cross of theOrder of the Falcon by the President of Iceland, followed by the Commander's Cross in 1987.[2] He was appointed CBE in the1965 New Year Honours in recognition of his chairmanship of theWelsh Arts Council. In 2008 a commemorative plaque to Jones was unveiled in the Hugh Owen library of Aberystwyth University.[3]
