A new collection of poems sheds light on women’s poetic voices across Wales, Ireland and Scotland between 1400 to 1800.
A collaboration between academics at Aberystwyth, Connecticut, University College Dublin, Edinburgh, and Galway universities, the new anthology aims to reshape understanding of female poetic traditions. It hopes to shift the long-standing focus on Anglophone writers to produce a devolved canon of women’s poetry.
Prioritising previously unpublished or untranslated texts, the anthology introduces readers to a diverse range of women’s voices and features poems and songs in Welsh, English, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Scots, and Ulster Scots. English translations of the texts in the Celtic languages will enable both specialists and general readers to engage with poems that have, until now, been inaccessible.
The collection also offers insights into the life of each poet, so readers can make connections between individual figures across national poetic traditions.
From countesses to maidservants, and from religious and political verse to personal and playful poems, the collection showcases rich poetic writings across four centuries, many languages and national traditions.
The project was established in Aberystwyth University in 2013 by Professor Sarah Prescott, current Vice Principal and Head of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (CAHSS) at Edinburgh University. Professor Prescott said:
“Our anthology provides a broad view of women’s poetic activity across the nations and languages of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales between 1400 and 1800. By including both well-known and marginalised women, it encourages readers to explore the variety of voices, genres and traditions that shaped women’s writing in this period.
“The collection represents a major step change in understanding the history of women’s writing, and paves the way for a forthcoming edited collection of essays which will provide detailed and comparative analysis of the material in the anthology.”
Co-editor, Dr Cathryn Charnell-White, from the Department of Welsh and Celtic Studies at Aberystwyth University, added:
“This anthology highlights the wide-ranging voices of women poets across late medieval and early modern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. By presenting their poems in their original languages alongside English translations, readers will be able to appreciate the range of women’s poetic practice for themselves.”
“Some of these poems have remained in manuscript or never before been translated, and so we hope the collection will give readers a fuller picture, not only of the literary cultures that informed women’s poetry, but also of the ways in which those literary cultures were, in turn, enriched by female poets. The poems in our anthology reveal connections between communities, traditions, and experiences that have too often been overlooked, and we are thrilled to bring these voices into a wider conversation about the history of women’s writing.”
The anthology was developed in partnership with Aberystwyth University, University College Dublin, University of Edinburgh, the University of Galway, and the University of Connecticut, and is part of a project of the same name funded by the Leverhulme Trust (2013–17).
Feature image: Dr Cathryn Charnell-White holding a copy of Women’s Poetry from Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, 1400–1800: An Anthology
