The Misfortunes of Elphin facts for kids
The Misfortunes of Elphin (1829) is a short historical romance by Thomas Love Peacock, set in 6th century Wales, which recounts the adventures of the bard Taliesin, the princes Elphin ap Gwythno and Seithenyn ap Seithyn, and King Arthur. Peacock researched his story from early Welsh materials, many of them untranslated at the time; he included many loose translations from bardic poetry, as well as original poems such as "The War-Song of Dinas Vawr". He also worked into it much satire of the Tory attitudes of his own time. Elphin has been highly praised for its sustained comic irony, and by some critics is considered the finest Arthurian literary work of the Romantic period.
Contents
Synopsis
At the start of the 6th century Caredigion is ruled by king Gwythno Garanhir, and his subordinate Prince Seithenyn ap Seithyn is in charge of the embankments that protect the plain of Gwaelod in Caredigion from the sea. One of Seithenyn's officials, Teithrin ap Tathral, discovers that the embankment is in a poor state of repair, and tells Elphin, son of king Gwythno. ..... Elphin then meets Angharad, Seithenyn's beautiful daughter, and together they watch the onset of a mighty tempest, which destroys the embankment so that the sea breaks through. Seithenyn, with drunken bravado, leaps into the waves, sword in hand, but Teithrin, Elphin and Angharad make their escape to king Gwythno's castle. Gwythno is distraught at the submersion of the best part of his kingdom under Cardigan Bay. Elphin marries Angharad and settles down to earn his living from the produce of a salmon-weir he has constructed. One day he finds in this weir a coracle containing a baby, whom he names Taliesin and raises along with his own daughter, Melanghel. As Taliesin grows up he learns the precepts of Druidism and becomes a bard. Gwythno dies, and Elphin inherits the throne of the reduced and impoverished kingdom of Caredigion, but is soon abducted by Maelgon, king of Gwyneth. ..... Taliesin sets out to free Elphin at the prompting of his foster-sister, Melanghel, with whom he is in love. At Maelgon's court he announces himself as a bard of Elphin, vindicates Angharad's honour, and enters into a poetic contest with Maelgon's bards, in the course of which he warns him of various impending dooms, including an attack by King Arthur and death by plague. Taliesin returns to Caredigion. Rhun follows him, wanting to make a second attempt on Angharad, but he is lured into a cave and there imprisoned when a boulder is released to seal up the entrance. Taliesin sets out to find King Arthur in Caer Lleon. On his way there he stops at Dinas Vawr, a fortress just captured by king Melvas, whose men are celebrating their victory in wine and song; among them he is astounded to find Angharad's father, Seithenyn ap Seithyn, who it turns out survived the flooding of Gwaelod so many years before. Taliesin reaches Caer Lleon, admires its splendours, then gets audience of King Arthur, who is keeping Christmas merrily, even though his wife Gwenyvar has been abducted by person or persons unknown. He tells the king a secret he has learned from Seithenyn, that Gwenyvar is being held by Melvas; then he moves on to Avallon, where Gwenyvar is being kept captive, in the hope of negotiating her peaceful release. There he meets Seithenyn again, together with the abbot of Avallon, both of whom agree to help him. Together these three convince Melvas that he has more to gain by voluntarily releasing Gwenyvar to Arthur than by facing Arthur's wrath. Back in Caer Lleon Taliesin takes part in another bardic contest. Llywarch sings his "The Brilliancies of Winter", Merlin his "Apple Trees" and Aneirin his "The Massacre of the Britons", but Taliesin's contribution, a portion of the Hanes Taliesin, is declared the finest. Seithenyn and the abbot then make their entrance, bringing Gwenyvar with them, and having restored her to Arthur they tell him that Taliesin was instrumental in securing her release. The grateful king grants Taliesin a boon, and Taliesin begs that Arthur will command Maelgon to release Elphin. Maelgon himself makes his appearance at this point and unwillingly submits to Arthur's will. Arthur sends an emissary to fetch Elphin, Rhun, and all other concerned parties, including Melanghel. The story ends with Taliesin's marriage to Melanghel, and election as Chief of the Bards of Britain.
Composition
Peacock's passionate interest in Welsh culture began many years before he wrote anything on the subject. In 1810–1811 he made a walking tour of Wales, returning three more times in the next few years, and he probably made use of his observations of the country in The Misfortunes of Elphin. He had a gift for languages, and is said to have taken his first steps in learning Welsh at this time. In 1820 he married a Welsh lady, Jane Gryffydh, who, it is supposed, either tutored him in the language or else acted as his translator. Certainly Elphin displays a knowledge of early Welsh materials, some of which were then unavailable in English translation. It is a reasonable surmise that his wife served as the model for Angharad and Melanghel. In 1822 he moved to a house in the village of Lower Halliford, Surrey, and it was here that Elphin was written. He chose to include 14 poems in his story, most of them being loose translations or adaptations of bardic poems by, among others, Taliesin, Myrddin and Llywarch Hen, though some, such as "The War-Song of Dinas Vawr", were original compositions. Elphin was published seven years after his previous book, Maid Marian (1822). It is possible that it had a long gestation because of the many other demands on Peacock's time, such as a full-time job at East India House and the work involved in serving as his friend Shelley's executor, and because his research was so assiduous, but it has also been argued that he did not begin to write it until late in 1827. The Misfortunes of Elphin was eventually published in March 1829.
Sources
Peacock's use of traditional and medieval Welsh-language sources was somewhat unusual in his time, when, outside Wales itself, they were generally thought unsuitable for use in works of literature. Though generally remaining true to their spirit, he reduces the role of the supernatural in these stories. The narrative structure of Elphin is based on three ancient tales: the inundation of Gwythno's kingdom through the negligence of Seithenyn, the birth and prophecies of Taliesin, and the abduction of Gwenyvar by Melvas. The first of these tales is told in a poem in the Black Book of Carmarthen, but was also available to Peacock in two English language sources, Samuel Rush Meyrick's History and Antiquities of Cardigan (1806) and T. J. Llewelyn Prichard's poem The Land Beneath the Sea (1824). The Taliesin story is told in the Hanes Taliesin. This was not available in full in the 1820s, either in English or in the original Welsh, but summaries and fragments of it were available in Edward Davies's The Mythology and Rites of the Druids (1809) and elsewhere. Peacock's version of the story of Arthur, Gwenyvar and Melvas derives ultimately from the 12th-century Latin Vita Gildae by Caradoc of Llancarfan, probably via Joseph Ritson's Life of King Arthur (1825). The poems scattered through Elphin are for the most part translated or imitated from originals published in Owen Jones's Myvyrian Archaiology (1801–1807). The Welsh triads Peacock quoted were available to him in translation in a journal called The Cambro-Briton (1819–1822), one of the major sources of his novella. The extended description of Caerleon owes much to Richard Colt Hoare's 1806 translation of Gerald of Wales's Itinerarium Cambriae and Descriptio Cambriae, but other topographical descriptions draw on Thomas Evans's Cambrian Itinerary and, probably, on Peacock's own memories of his various Welsh holidays.
Satire and humour
Quite apart from being a historical romance The Misfortunes of Elphin is also a sustained satirical attack on contemporary Tory attitudes. Gwythno's dam stands for the British constitution, Seithenyn's speech disclaiming any need to repair it echoes various of George Canning's speeches rejecting constitutional reform, and the inundation represents the pressure for reform, or alternatively the French Revolution. Peacock also makes numerous ironic comments about the blessings of progress, and in his portrayal of the "plump, succulent" abbey of Avallon he attacks the over-comfortable clergy of the Church of England. Other targets of his satire include industrialization, the doctrine of utilitarianism, realpolitik, pollution, paper money, false literary taste and the Poet Laureateship. These attacks on the follies of his own times do not, however, lead Peacock to idealize his medieval characters by contrast. Arthur is less than distraught at his wife's absence, Gwenyvar is no better than she ought to be, Merlin is a secret pagan whose supposed magic is merely natural philosophy, and such human frailties are seen as driving history. Human nature, for Peacock, was imperfect in very similar ways in all periods of history.
The appeal of The Misfortunes of Elphin for the modern reader depends largely its unusual blending of an Olympian irony with simple good humour. The result has been described as "comic genius of the highest order".
The comic and ironic invention of the novel is seen at its finest in the character of Seithenyn, "one of the immortal drunkards in the literature of the world", as David Garnett described him. He is "a Welsh Silenus, a tutelary spirit of an amiable and approachable type", whose conversational style, with its alcoholically twisted logic, has led to his being repeatedly compared to Falstaff. He is perhaps Peacock's greatest character. Priestley devoted a whole chapter of his English Comic Characters (1925) to Seithenyn, and criticism of Elphin has mostly focused on him, though Felix Felton argued that he is only one of a trio of characters on whom the work really rests, the others being Taliesin and Elphin.
