I can now offer some further information on the
newly-discovered Cornish play in the National Library of
Wales as reported in my previous posting. It is now clear
that it is two parts (about 3300 lines of a likely total of
5500-6500) of a single play dealing with the life of St.
Kea. The vita (now surviving only in a seventeenth-century
transcription) includes an episode in which the saint
mediates a dispute between Arthur, Modred, and Guinevere
(deriving largely from Geoffrey of Monmouth HRB ix/18), so
there is emphatically _not_ a separate Arthurian play. This
was initially not clear since the passage in which the saint
is asked to intervene is missing. Graham Thomas's edition
is well advanced, and he hopes to have it out within a year.
I will offer a full report on the text and the manuscript at
the Kalamazoo conference next May.
David Klausner
--
David N. Klausner, Professor of English and Medieval Studies
Director, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto
voice: 416-978-5422 fax: 416-971-1398
"Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable."
Samuel Johnson
