Creative Bilingualism in Late-Medieval Welsh Poetry

This article considers why bilingual poets from medieval Wales exploited their various languages as avenues of creativity. It discusses five poems the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that synthesize Welsh either English or Latin to varying degrees. The untangles conscious often complex linguistic integration, using term 'extralinguistic bilingualism' do so with two exclusively nonetheless use strict metre 'orthography'. One these is a series once anonymous englynion recently found be work prolific poet Tudur Aled, who flourished in last quarter century first century. By examining tandem contextualizing apparent isolation within Wales's contemporary landscape phenomena multilingual poetry, Marian lyrics 'aureate' diction, impetus behind curious hybridity queried. argued comedy, piety literary craft are key considerations, all connected by an overarching concern for relative prestige: perceived divergence between social status each language.