Background to English Welsh Literary-Translation
Translation into English effectively began in the eighteenth century and the practice has continued unbroken since that time, with the twentieth century seeing a marked acceleration in output. Styles of translation have been as varied as the aims of translators and publishers; academic, popular, commercial, “literal” (sometimes deliberately reducing poetry to prose), creatively loose. Many creative writers, including several of the most distinguished, have produced translations that exist in a symbiotic relationship with their own original work (e.g. R.S. Thomas, Emyr Humphreys, Tony Conran, Leslie Norris and John Ormond). Translators have themselves been of varied background – one of the most outstanding of contemporary translators is American and has aimed some of his work specifically at an American readership. Many anthologies of translation have decisively influenced the development of twentieth century Anglophone literature, both within Wales and much farther afield – not only, for example, did The Penguin Book of Welsh Verse help bring a whole generation of Anglo-Welsh poets into distinctive being, it also helped form the mature style of the great Australian poet, Les Murray. Ever since Welsh-English translation was first instigated in the late eighteenth century, it has provided an invaluable interface between Wales and the wider world (even non-anglophone cultures usually discover Welsh language literature through the medium of English), between Wales and the other countries of the British Isles, and (most importantly of all, perhaps) between the two cultures of Wales itself.
Translation has grown to encompass virtually the whole of Welsh literature, from the earliest poetry (seventh century), through the literature of the classical period (Cynfeirdd, Gogynfeirdd, Beirdd yr Uchelwyr) on to the rich religious and pietistic literature of the eighteenth century (with its culturally transformative Methodist Revival) and down through the popular poetry and pioneering fiction of the nineteenth century to the great Welsh literary renaissance of the twentieth century of which present day writers (well represented in translation) are heirs. Among the works translated have been acknowledged classics of European culture – The Mabinogion, the work of Dafydd ap Gwilym, the hymns of William Williams Pantycelyn, the short stories of Kate Roberts and the plays, poetry, fiction and political writings of Saunders Lewis.
"arguably the elegance of classical Welsh verse is a great cultural secret which can be revealed only by acquiring and turning the language key" - T. Arfon Williams, "A Lot Can't be Translated", Modern Poetry in Translation 7 (Spring 1995), p. 70.