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Research Fellow
Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies (CAWCS)
Tel: 01970 636543
Email: j.day@wales.ac.uk
Role in the University
Jenny Day has been a research fellow at the Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies since 2015 and is currently working on the 鈥楶oetry of Merlin鈥 project.
She teaches on the modules 鈥楢n Introduction to Celtic Literatures鈥 (HPCS4005) and 鈥榃elsh Praise Poetry鈥 (HPCS5018), and is a supervisor for postgraduate students.
Background
As a member of the project team of the AHRC-funded 鈥楶oetry of Merlin鈥 project, Jenny has been editing and studying the little-known later corpus of poems attributed to Merlin in manuscripts dating from the fifteenth century to c.1800.
Previously she worked on the 鈥楾he Sacred Landscapes of Medieval Monasteries鈥 project (also AHRC-funded), editing poetry addressed by the poet and polymath Gutun Owain to two fifteenth-century abbots of Valle Crucis, and investigating what these and other poetic sources reveal about this important Cistercian abbey.
Jenny was part of the editorial team at Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru from 2013 i 2022, and has worked on several other research projects at the Centre. She edited and translated Lives of St Martin of Tours, St David and St Mary of Egypt for the project (AHRC, 2015鈥17), and for the project (Leverhulme, 2017鈥18) she collected and analysed water-related place-names from the Book of Llandaf, using these and literary sources to explore the ways in which water resources were exploited and perceived in medieval Wales. For the 鈥楶oetry of Guto鈥檙 Glyn鈥 project (AHRC, 2008鈥2012) she helped develop both the website and 鈥樷. She has an ongoing research interest in medieval Welsh weapons and warfare, stemming from her doctoral studies at Aberystwyth University on weapons in Welsh poetry (鈥).
Academic Interests
- 鈥楢n Introduction to Celtic Literatures鈥 (HPCS4005)
- 鈥榃elsh Praise Poetry鈥 (HPCS5018)
- Postgraduate Supervision
Research Interests
Jenny has an ongoing research interest in medieval Welsh poetry and in what it can reveal as a source for various aspects of life in the Middle Ages. She has published a variety of articles on the depiction of weapons and armour in poems ranging in date from the 鈥楪ododdin鈥 to the works of the late-medieval cywyddwyr, and has recently been working on the depiction of monastic life and the monastic estate in the poems of Gutun Owain and his contemporaries.
She has extensive experience of editing and translating medieval prose and poetry, and a particular interest in the way texts change during transmission though various processes of misinterpretation, reinterpretation and adaptation. For the 鈥楥ult of Saints in Wales鈥 project she studied the textual transmission of saints鈥 Lives and their adaptation for different audiences, and she is currently investigating the complex inter-relationships and highly changeable content of later prophetic poems for the 鈥楶oetry of Merlin鈥 project.
Expertise
- Editing and interpreting Welsh poetry and prose of the medieval and early modern periods
- Poets and scribes in medieval and early modern Wales
- Scholarship and monasticism in medieval Wales
- Welsh saints鈥 cults and hagiography
- Medieval warfare and weapons
Publications
- , C卯teaux 鈥 Commentarii cistercienses, 73 (2022), ISSN 0009-7497, 255鈥76.
- , in David Parsons and Paul Russell (eds), Seintiau Cymru, Sancti Cambrenses: Studies in the Saints of Wales (Aberystwyth, 2022), chapter 6.
- , in David Parsons and Paul Russell (eds), Seintiau Cymru, Sancti Cambrenses: Studies in the Saints of Wales (Aberystwyth, 2022), chapter 9.
- 鈥楤uchedd Martin鈥 [a new edition and translation of the Welsh Life of St Martin], . (2020)
- , Dwned, 25 (2019), 11鈥45
- , Dwned, 23 (2017), 41鈥77
- , Ll锚n Cymru, 40 (2017), 3鈥39
- 鈥榃eapons and fighting in Y Gododdin鈥,&苍产蝉辫;Studia Celtica XLIX (2015), 121鈥47
- 鈥楤rigandines in two fifteenth-century request poems鈥,&苍产蝉辫;Studia Celtica XLVII (2013), 167鈥82
- 鈥 鈥淎rms of stone upon my grave鈥: weapons in the poetry of Guto鈥檙 Glyn鈥, in Dylan Foster Evans, Barry J. Lewis and Ann Parry Owen (eds.), 鈥楪walch Cywyddau Gw欧r鈥: Essays on Guto鈥檙 Glyn and Fifteenth-century Wales (Aberystwyth: Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, 2013), 233鈥81
- 鈥楽hields in Welsh poetry up to c.1300: decoration, shape and significance鈥,&苍产蝉辫;Studia Celtica XLV (2011), 27鈥52