literature
A Roman poet in west Wales
Martial – Marcus Valerius Martialis – was a first century Roman poet. He came to live in Rome from Augusta Bilbilis, near Calatayud in modern Spain, and made his name through his hundreds of short poems or ‘epigrams’. Witty, punchy and far too foulmouthed and sexually explicit for broadcast on Radio 4, only now are […]
Capel-y-ffin: tro ar fyd David Jones
Mae’n drueni mawr na fydd yr arddangosfa David Jones: vision and memory, sydd newydd ddod i ben yn Pallant House, Chichester, yn dod yma i Gymru, cartref ysbrydol ac ysbrydoliaeth yr artist ac awdur o Lundain. Fel cytunodd pob un o’i hadolygwyr, arddangosfa o’r safon uchaf fu hi, gyda nifer fawr o weithiau anghyfarwydd, yn […]
Kyffin Williams the writer
The text of the 8th Kyffin Williams Annual Lecture, given at Highgate School, London on 1 February 2016. First, I’d like to thank David Smith and Highgate School for inviting me to give this year’s Kyffin Williams Lecture. It’s very fitting that Highgate remembers Kyffin so loyally, because he was always grateful to the school […]
Back to Briggflats
My favourite place in England is the hamlet of Brigflatts, a few miles from Sedbergh. The river Rawthey flows nearby, and the few houses cluster around the Friends Meeting House, one of the oldest Quaker meeting houses in the country (1675). In the graveyard lies the body of Basil Bunting. In Quaker fashion, all the […]
Drinking coffee in the desert with Charles Doughty
On 10 November 1876, having taught himself Arabic, a 31 year old Englishmen called Charles Montagu Doughty set off from Damascus to travel alone across the Empty Quarter of the Arabian peninsula via Meda’in Saleh to join the Haj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. It was a quixotic act. The British Consul refused to help him […]
Cofio am Osi Rhys Osmond
Y dydd o’r blaen rhoddodd ffrind lyfr ail-law imi, ychwanegiad i’m llyfrgell fach o lyfrau ar gelfyddyd cerdded. Doedd y gyfrol, I know another way: from Tintern to St Davids (Gomer, 2002) ddim yn gyfarwydd imi. Casgliad yw e o ysgrifau er cof am Robin Reeves, y newyddiadurwr, ymgyrchydd a golygydd New Welsh Review a […]
How to say goodbye: a picture by Gerard David
The National Gallery of Ireland contains many wonders. As in most big art galleries, though, you can walk past wall after wall of old masters without any of them leaving much of an impact on the eye or memory. Then suddenly one of them will look at you, and make you stop. And if you […]
Moby-Dick and the poor devil of a Sub-Sub
Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick (1851) is a book that, once read, will never leave you. Its themes are as close as a book’s themes can be to the essence of being human. Its symbol – ‘symbol’ is a poor choice of word – of the great white whale will stalk your imagination, waking or asleep, for […]
Iliad
National Theatre Wales’s recent production of the Iliad in Ffwrnes, Llanelli raises interesting questions about dramatising canonical texts not intended for drama. The Greeks are hot on the British stage at the moment. Two versions of Aeschylus’ Oresteia trilogy appeared in London this year, and Euripides is in vogue too, with productions of Medea and […]
Shandy Hall and the Auxerre moment
Shandy Hall is a house almost as eccentric as the mind of its once owner, Laurence Sterne, vicar of Coxwold and author of The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy. One of the highlights of the summer was a tour of the inside of the building in the company of its curator, Patrick Wildgust. My […]