Griffri - Hardcover

Meredith, Christopher

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1854110594 ISBN 13: 9781854110596

Publisher: Seren, 1995

Synopsis

'In the dream I'm travelling very fast and without effort high over the ground as if I'm a bird flying. There's the trackless mass of trees and strips of mountain ridges and the thread of river like sour milk. The sky is dark blue and red like bruises. I swoop down and then up to miss smashing into the crowns of the trees and I see the bruised air and the black horizon. I come to a figure standing on the heather. He stands with his arms flung out, the fingers spread, like branches. I come close to his face, to his untidy red moustache and his head split by an appalling wound.' On two nights separated by a gap of a dozen years, Griffri ap Berddig, a poet at the court of a minor Welsh prince of the twelfth century, tells his life story to a Cistercian monk. Part boast and part confession, his words turn into a compelling narrative which develops through an accumulation of obsessive images towards self-revelation. A complex mixture of historical detail and invention, Griffri is a serious and entertaining novel examining the limits of our knowledge of the world and ourselves.

About this title

About the Author:

"The language is earthily poetic, evoking mud, smoke, smells, the basic pleasures and taken-for-granted hardships of civilised life as it emerged from the Dark Ages ... the overall effect is beautiful." - The Observer

From Publishers Weekly:

``The world is either miraculous or hellish,'' says the eponymous narrator, a medieval Welsh pencerdd (chief poet) who proves his point in this tragic tale of a people and culture struggling against subsumptionok by the English. On two nights separated by a period of years, Griffri tells a Cistercian monk of his apprenticeship under poet Gwrgant ap Rhys; of his service with two minor chieftains and the intricate lines of extended kinship that linked all the region's leaders; of his ascension to position of chief poet and bardd teulu for a band of warriors; of his love for and subsequent marriage to Cristin, a serving woman; and of the nearly constant strife among the Welsh tribes. Meredith ( Shifts ) flawlessly evokes the powerful language of a man trained as a repository of oral tradition and history. A brief glossary defines the Welsh nouns liberally used throughout, and a list of characters assists in elucidating a complex narrative.

Copyright 1992 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Seren
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 1854110594
• ISBN 13: 9781854110596
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 258