BRETON LITERATURE

Ancient literature of Brittany. In its earliest written forms, which scholars have traced back to the period between the 7th and 11th centuries, Breton is represented by glosses of Latin words. The oldest known continuous text in the language consists of six or seven lines of a 14th-century Latin manuscript, discovered in 1913. From the 15th to the 17th century a fair-sized body of religious literature was produced, much of it in the form of mystery and miracle plays. Mellezour an Maru (Mirror of Death), a lengthy poem of the early 16th century, deals with the last judgment. The first important prose work in Breton is Buhez Sante Cathell (Life of Saint Catherine), largely translated from a Latin source and first published in 1576.

Brittany experienced a literary revival in the 19th century. The Bible was translated into Breton in 1827 by Jean François Legonidec (1775–1838), who eliminated words of French origin. Some of these words were the most common in the language, and, because the words he substituted often were absurd, the Breton translation is decidedly unrepresentative. During the century many orally transmitted poems, folktales, proverbs, and riddles were written down and published. That phase of the revival was stimulated to some extent by the appearance in 1839 of what purported to be a collection of old popular songs, Barzaz Breiz (The Poetry of Brittany), edited by Hersart de Villemarqué (1815–95). Although it was discovered later that the editor had retouched many of the songs, and that a great many were of recent origin, the volume influenced such later collectors and poets as Anatole Le Braz (1859–1926). Another poet, Prosper Proux (1811–73), who wrote Poems of a Man from Cornwall (1839), became one of the most popular writers of the early 19th century.

In the 20th century several periodicals, such as Gwalarn (Northwest, 1925–44; continued as Liamm, Bond, from 1946 on), presented the works of new authors. A number of scholarly works on the Breton language were published, and a few novelists achieved modest success. Our Lady of the Carmelites (1942) by Youenn Drezen is considered one of the finest modern Breton novels. Distinguished among several modern poets in the language were Jean Pierre Colloc’h (1888–1917)—who wrote religious verse such as Kneeling, published posthumously with a French translation in 1921—and Roperzh Er Mason, writer of compelling nature poetry. Since the Middle Ages drama has been popular in Brittany, and a modern school of drama was founded by Tanguey Malmanche (1875–1953), among others.