Корнская литература: история и памятники письменности

Written works in the Cornish language

Cornish literature refers to written works in the Cornish language. The earliest surviving texts are in verse and date from the 14th century. There are virtually none from the 18th and 19th centuries but writing in revived forms of Cornish began in the early 20th century.

The Prophecy of Ambrosius Merlin concerning the Seven Kings is a 12th century poem written ca. 1144 by John of Cornwall in Latin, with some of the marginal notes in Cornish. John stated that the work was a translation based on an earlier document written in the Cornish language. The manuscript of the poem, on a codex currently held at the Vatican Library, is unique. It attracted little attention from the scholarly world until 1876, when Whitley Stokes undertook a brief analysis of the Cornish and Welsh vocabulary found in John's marginal commentary. These notes are among the earliest known writings in the Cornish language. In 2001 this important work was translated back into Cornish by Julyan Holmes. Pascon agan Arluth ('The Passion of our Lord'), a poem of 259 eight line verses probably composed around 1375, is one of the earliest surviving works of Cornish literature. The most important work of literature surviving from the Middle Cornish period is the Cornish Ordinalia, a 9000 line religious verse drama which had probably reached its present form by 1400. The Ordinalia consists of three mystery plays, Origo Mundi, Passio Christi and Resurrexio Domini, meant to be performed on successive days. Such plays were performed in a Plain an Gwarry (Playing place). In 1981, the Breton library Preder edited it in modern scripture under the name of Passyon agan arluth. The longest single surviving work of Cornish literature is Beunans Meriasek (The Life of Meriasek), a two day verse drama dated 1504, but probably copied from an earlier manuscript. Other notable pieces of Cornish literature include the Creation of the World (with Noah's Flood) which is a miracle play similar to Origo Mundi but in a much later manuscript (1611); the Charter Fragment, a short poem about marriage, believed to be the earliest connected text in the language; and Beunans Ke, another saint's play only discovered in 2000, notable for including some Arthurian material.

The earliest surviving examples of Cornish prose are the Tregear Homilies, a series of 12 Catholic sermons written in English and translated by John Tregear in around 1560, to which a thirteenth homily The Sacrament of the Alter was added by another hand. and one by Bonner himself) were translated into Cornish by John Tregear, and are now the largest single work of traditional Cornish prose. The thirteenth homily in the Cornish translation is taken from an unidentified source. and often used English loanwords or loan translations. The Homilies were discovered in April 1949 by John Mackechnie in the papers of the Puleston family in the collection of the British Museum.

Fragments of Cornish writing continued to appear as the language was becoming extinct during the 18th century. However, in the late 19th century a few works by non native speakers were produced; these efforts were followed by a more substantial revival in the 20th and 21st centuries. Of the early pieces the most significant is the so called "Cranken Rhyme" produced by John Davey of Boswednack, one of the last people with some traditional knowledge of the language. The poem, published by John Hobson Matthews in 1892, may be the last piece of traditional Cornish literature. In 1865 German language enthusiast Georg Sauerwein composed two poems in the language. Later Hobson Matthews wrote several poems, such as the patriotic "Can Wlascar Agan Mamvro" ("Patriotic Song of our Motherland"), and Robert Morton Nance, a disciple of Henry Jenner, created a body of verse, for example "Nyns yu Marow Myghtern Arthur" ("King Arthur is not Dead"), which concerns the popular Cornish subject of King Arthur's legendary immortality. Both of these writers' works are characterised by a specifically revivalist mode. Others appeared in Kernewek Kemmyn, such as Polin Prys' Kas ha Dial (Hate and Revenge) and the Broder Wella (Brother William) collection of short stories by Jowann Richards. The advent of the Standard Written Form in 2008 saw the translation of Saint Exupéry's The Little Prince (An Pennsevik Byhan) in 2010, and several novels by Rod Lyon, Dhe Emlow an Galaksi (To the edges of the galaxy) in 2015, Tenkys (Fate) in 2016 and Dicky Holla in 2017. A list of many titles including translations and original stories for adults and children can be found on the Cornish language page.