Editing Welsh literature in English (section)

==The beginnings==
[[File:GeorgeHerbertEasterWingsPatternPoem1633.jpg|thumb|[[George Herbert]]'s "[[Easter Wings]]", a [[pattern poem]] in which the work is not only meant to be read, but its shape is meant to be appreciated. In this case, the poem was printed (original image here shown) on two facing pages of a book, sideways, so that the lines suggest two birds flying upward, with wings spread out.]]

While [[Raymond Garlick]] discovered sixty-nine Welsh men and women who wrote in English prior to the twentieth century,<ref>Raymond Garlick, ''An Introduction to Anglo-Welsh Literature''</ref> Dafydd Johnston thinks it "debatable whether such writers belong to a recognisable Anglo-Welsh literature, as opposed to English literature in general".<ref>''A Pocket Guide to the Literature of Wales'' University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 1994, p. 91</ref> Well into the nineteenth century English was spoken by relatively few in Wales, and prior to the early twentieth century there are only three major Welsh-born writers who wrote in the English language: [[George Herbert]] (1593–1633) from [[Montgomeryshire]], [[Henry Vaughan]] (1622–1695) from [[Brecknockshire]], and [[John Dyer]] (1699–1757) from [[Carmarthenshire]]. While some see them as clearly belonging to the English tradition,<ref>''A Pocket Guide'', p. 91.</ref> Belinda Humphrey believes that both Vaughan and Dyer are Anglo-Welsh poets because, unlike Herbert, they are "rooted creatively in the Welsh countryside of their birth". Furthermore, she suggests in Vaughan's case the possible influence of the tradition of Welsh-language poetry.<ref>Belinda Humfrey, "Prelude to the Twentieth Century", in ''Welsh Writing in English'', ed. M. Wynn Thomas. University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 2003, pp. 5–46.</ref> Writers from medieval Wales such as [[Geoffrey of Monmouth]] and [[Adam of Usk]] also used Latin and Norman French, in addition to English and Welsh.

Welsh writing in English might be said to begin with the fifteenth-century bard [[Ieuan ap Hywel Swrdwal]] (?1430 – ?1480), whose ''Hymn to the Virgin'' was written at [[Oxford, England|Oxford]] in England in about 1470 and uses a Welsh poetic form, the ''[[awdl]]'', and [[Welsh orthography]]; for example:

:O mighti ladi, owr leding – tw haf
:::At hefn owr abeiding:
::Yntw ddy ffast eferlasting
::I set a braents ws tw bring.

A rival claim for the first Welsh writer to use English creatively is made for the poet, [[John Clanvowe]] (1341–1391). Clanvowe's best-known work was ''The Book of Cupid, God of Love'' or ''The Cuckoo and the Nightingale''. which is influenced by Chaucer's ''[[Parliament of Fowls]]''. ''The Cuckoo and the Nightingale'' had previously been attributed to Chaucer but the ''Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature'' notes the absence of direct evidence of that when linking Clanvowe with the work.<ref>Robert T. Lambdin, Laura C. Lambdin, ''Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature'' (2000), pp. 104–5.</ref> The poem is written as a literary [[dream vision]] and is an example of [[medieval debate literature|medieval debate poetry]]. A concerto inspired by the poem was composed by [[Georg Friedrich Handel]]. It apparently also influenced works by both [[John Milton]] and [[William Wordsworth]].{{citation needed|date=July 2022}} Clanvowe also wrote ''The Two Ways'', a penitential treatise.<ref>Lee Patterson, ''Chaucer and the Subject of History'' (1991), p. 38.</ref>