Contesting Narrative Over the Body of Blodeuwedd: Gender, Nation, and Language in Adaptations of the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi

George, Jessica

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-36994-1_2

Jessica George⁴

253 Accesses

Abstract

The Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi, best known for the Blodeuwedd story, has been frequently adapted. Its subject matter focuses on the gendered exploitation of bodies. Adaptations of Welsh myth in centuries when English dominates must necessarily be conscious of the importance of language. Nineteenth-century English commentators had associated the Welsh language with uncleanliness and unconstrained female sexuality. In response, Welsh-speaking nationalists sought to enforce strict feminine propriety, leaving Welsh women caught between stereotype and self-repression.

This essay considers three adaptations of the Fourth Branch: Saunders Lewis’s 1947 play Blodeuwedd; Gwyneth Lewis’s 2010 novel The Meat Tree; and “The Girl in the Water”, a 2013 episode of the crime drama Hinterland/Y Gwyll. It investigates the forms of resistance and identification made available to their Blodeuwedd figures.

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Notes

1.
Sioned Davies, The Four Branches of the Mabinogi [Pedeir Keinc y Mabinogi] (Llandysul: Gomer, 1993), 9.
2.
Ibid., 13.
3.
Stephen Knight, A Hundred Years of Fiction (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2004), 8.
4.
All quotations are taken from the English version of the episode, broadcast in 2014.
5.
For a full version of the Fourth Branch, see Sioned Davies, trans, The Mabinogion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 47–64.
6.
Roberta Louise Valente, “‘Merched y Mabinogi’: Women and the Thematic Structure of the Four Branches,” (PhD diss., Cornell University, 1986), 43.
7.
Ibid., 53.
8.
Ibid., 98.
9.
Ibid., 112.
10.
Ibid., 270.
11.
Ibid., 241.
12.
Ibid., 246.
13.
Gwyneth Tyson Roberts, The Language of the Blue Books: Wales and Colonial Prejudice (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1998), 19.
14.
Ibid., 2.
15.
Ibid., 3.
16.
Ibid., 51.
17.
Ibid., 133–140.
18.
Gwyn A. Williams, When Was Wales? A History of the Welsh (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985), 208.
19.
Harri Garrod Roberts, Embodying Identity: Representations of the Body in Welsh Literature. (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2009), 22.
20.
Ibid., 22.
21.
Ibid., 28.
22.
Tyson Roberts, Language, 162.
23.
Ibid., 159.
24.
Ibid., 163.
25.
Kirsti Bohata, Postcolonialism Revisited (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2004), 62.
26.
Jane Aaron, “Finding a Voice in Two Tongues: Gender and Colonization,” in Jane Aaron, Tessa Rees, Sandra Betts, and Moira Vincentelli (eds), Our Sisters’ Land: The Changing Identities of Women in Wales (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1994), 188.
27.
Valente, “‘Merched’”, 35.
28.
Bruce Griffiths, “His Theatre,” in Alun R. Jones and Gwyn Thomas (eds) Presenting Saunders Lewis (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1983), 83–84.
29.
Ibid., 79.
30.
Dafydd Glyn Jones, “His Politics,” in Jones and Thomas (eds), Presenting Saunders Lewis, 31.
31.
Saunders Lewis, “The Fate of the Language [Tynged yr Iaith],” translated by G. Aled Williams, in Jones and Thomas (eds), Presenting Saunders Lewis, 137.
32.
Jones, “His Politics”, 40.
33.
Ibid., 47.
34.
Ibid., 61.
35.
Ibid., 29, 39.
36.
Saunders Lewis , The Woman Made of Flowers [Blodeuwedd], translated by Joseph P. Clancy (Llandybie: Dinefwr, 2016), 9.
37.
Ibid., 8.
38.
Ibid., 9.
39.
Ibid.
40.
Ibid.
41.
Ibid., 8.
42.
Ibid., 10–11. Formatting in original.
43.
Ibid., 11.
44.
Ibid., 17.
45.
Ibid.
46.
Ibid., 16.
47.
Ibid., 18–19.
48.
Ibid., 19.
49.
Ibid., 25.
50.
Ibid., 49–50.
51.
Ibid., 50.
52.
Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, trans. Leon S. Roudiez (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), 4.
53.
Elizabeth Grosz, “Animal Sex: Libido as Desire and Death,” in Elizabeth Grosz and Elspeth Probyn (eds), Sexy Bodies: The Strange Carnalities of Feminism (London: Routledge, 1995), 282.
54.
Ibid., 284.
55.
Lewis , Blodeuwedd, 55.
56.
Penny Thomas, “Introduction,” in Gwyneth Lewis, The Meat Tree (Bridgend: Seren, 2010), 10–11.
57.
Ibid., 10.
58.
Ibid.
59.
Alice Entwistle, Poetry, Geography, Gender: Women Rewriting Contemporary Wales (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2013), 91.
60.
Lewis , The Meat Tree, 86.
61.
Ibid., 131.
62.
Gwyneth Lewis, “On Writing Poetry in Two Languages”, Modern Poetry in Translation 7 (1995), 80.
63.
Lewis , The Meat Tree, 162.
64.
Ibid., 162.
65.
Ibid.
66.
Ibid., 163–164.
67.
Ibid., 185.
68.
Ibid., 245.
69.
Ibid.
70.
Cerith Mathis, “In Conversation with Ed Thomas, Co-Creator of Y Gwyll/Hinterland”, Wales Arts Review, 20 November 2014, https://www.walesartsreview.org/in-conversation-with-ed-thomas-creator-of-y-gwyllhinterland/.
71.
Ibid.
72.
Jeff Murphy, “The Girl in the Water,” in Hinterland, dir. Ed Thomas (S4C/BBC Wales), 19 May 2014.
73.
Ibid.
74.
Ibid.
75.
Ibid.
76.
Ibid.
77.
Ibid.

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Independent Scholar, Cardiff, UK
Jessica George

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University of Passau, Passau, Bayern, Germany
Bodie A. Ashton
Chester, UK
Amy Bonsall
Northwich, Cheshire, UK
Jonathan Hay

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George, J. (2020). Contesting Narrative Over the Body of Blodeuwedd: Gender, Nation, and Language in Adaptations of the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi. In: Ashton, B., Bonsall, A., Hay, J. (eds) Talking Bodies Vol. II. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36994-1_2

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36994-1_2
Published: 08 May 2020
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
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