Helen Fulton is a professor of Medieval Literature at Bristol University. [1]
Helen Fulton studied at the University of Oxford and the University of Sydney. Following her PhD completion at the University of Sydney, [2] she spent three years as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Wales in Aberystwyth. [3] She then worked as a lecturer and Associate Professor at the University of Sydney, before being appointed Professor of English at Swansea University in 2005, [1] where she was also Head of the School of Arts. [2] She worked as Professor of Medieval Literature and Head of the Department of English at the University of York from 2010 to 2015, before being appointed Professor and Chair of Medieval Literature at Bristol University's Department of English, a post she currently holds. [1] [2]
She has also been a visiting research fellow at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, St John's College, Cambridge and Magdalen College, Oxford. [1]
She is the Chair of the Editorial Board of the University of Wales Press [2] and has been the editor of the Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion since 2008. [3] She has formerly held a University of Wales postdoctoral fellowship at the Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies in Aberystwyth [1] and from 2020 to 2023, held a Leverhulme postdoctoral fellowship. [4]
In 2014, she was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. [2] In 2015, she was elected a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales. [1] She is currently that Vice President for Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at the Learned Society of Wales. [2]
She specialises in medieval Welsh Literature and its connection to medieval English and Irish Literature. Her main research interests include history and politics of medieval literature, classical reception in the Middle-Ages, Arthurian Literature and medieval urban literature. She has been the Principal Investigator or Co-investigator of 17 funded research projects in the United Kingdom and Australia. [2]
Fulton, Helen (2012). A Companion to Arthurian Literature. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-4706-7237-2
Fulton, Helen (2012). Urban Culture in Medieval Wales. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. ISBN 978-0-7083-2503-2
Fulton, Helen; Evans, Geraint (eds) (2019). The Cambridge History of Welsh Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-10676-5
Fulton, Helen (2021). Chaucer and Italian Culture. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. ISBN 978-1-78683-678-6
The Mabinogion are the earliest Welsh prose stories, and belong to the Matter of Britain. The stories were compiled in Middle Welsh in the 12th–13th centuries from earlier oral traditions. There are two main source manuscripts, created c. 1350–1410, as well as a few earlier fragments. The title covers a collection of eleven prose stories of widely different types, offering drama, philosophy, romance, tragedy, fantasy and humour, and created by various narrators over time. There is a classic hero quest, "Culhwch and Olwen"; a historic legend in "Lludd and Llefelys", complete with glimpses of a far off age; and other tales portray a very different King Arthur from the later popular versions. The highly sophisticated complexity of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi defies categorisation. The stories are so diverse that it has been argued that they are not even a true collection.
Sir John Edward Lloyd was born in Liverpool. He was educated in the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, which he left in 1881, and Lincoln College, Oxford, from which he graduated in 1883 with a first class honours degree. Lloyd became a much-published and famous Welsh historian. He wrote the first serious history of the country's formative years, A History of Wales from the Earliest Times to the Edwardian Conquest (1911) and Owen Glendower/Owain Glyn Dŵr (1931). And he was the first editor of 'Y Bywgraffiadur Cymreig', which was published posthumously in 1953. He was knighted in 1934.
Peredur is the name of a number of men from the boundaries of history and legend in sub-Roman Britain. The Peredur who is most familiar to a modern audience is the character who made his entrance as a knight in the Arthurian world of Middle Welsh prose literature.
The Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, often called simply the Cymmrodorion, is a London-based Welsh learned society, with membership open to all. It was first established in 1751 as a social, cultural, literary and philanthropic institution. It fell into abeyance between 1787 and 1820, and again between 1843 and 1873. In its second and third incarnations its interests have been predominantly cultural and antiquarian. The present society claims continuity from that founded in 1751, although the three successive societies have in fact been slightly different in character and aims.
John Davies, FLSW was a Welsh historian, and a television and radio broadcaster. He attended university at Cardiff and Cambridge and taught Welsh at Aberystwyth. He wrote a number of books on Welsh history, including A History of Wales.
Siân James was a Welsh novelist, academic and translator, who wrote in English. Her third novel, A Small Country, is seen as a classic of Anglo-Welsh literature. Her 1996 short-story collection Not Singing Exactly won the English-language category in Wales Book of the Year, the first book by a woman to do so.
Rachel Bromwich born Rachel Sheldon Amos, was a British scholar. Her focus was on medieval Welsh literature, and she taught Celtic Languages and Literature in the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic at the University of Cambridge, from 1945 to 1976. Among her most important contributions to the study of Welsh literature is Trioedd Ynys Prydein, her edition of the Welsh Triads.
Thomas Mowbray Charles-Edwards is an emeritus academic at the University of Oxford. He formerly held the post of Jesus Professor of Celtic and is a Professorial Fellow at Jesus College.
Prys Morgan FRHistS FSA FLSW is a Welsh historian.
The Cambrian Archaeological Association was founded in 1846 to examine, preserve and illustrate the ancient monuments and remains of the history, language, manners, customs, arts and industries of Wales and the Welsh Marches and to educate the public in such matters. The association's activities include sponsoring lectures, field visits, and study tours; as well as publishing its journal, Archaeologia Cambrensis, and monographs. It also provides grants to support research and publications.
Brynley Francis Roberts, known as Bryn Roberts, was a Welsh scholar and critic, who wrote significantly on the Welsh language and Celtic history. He was Professor of Welsh Language and Literature at the University of Wales, Swansea 1978–1985 and Librarian of the National Library of Wales in 1985–1994, then made editor of the Dictionary of Welsh Biography in 1987 and of Y Traethodydd in 1999. He was on the council of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion and involved in the Morfa Chapel, Aberystwyth, part of the Presbyterian Church of Wales. In 2011, he was elected as a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales.
Robert Thomas Jenkins CBE was a Welsh historian and academic.
Peredur Ionor Lynch, FLSW is a Welsh academic who serves as professor of Welsh & Medieval Literature in the School of Welsh and Celtic Studies at Bangor University.
"The Seagull" is a love poem in 30 lines by the 14th-century Welsh poet Dafydd ap Gwilym, probably written in or around the 1340s. Dafydd is widely seen as the greatest of the Welsh poets, and this is one of his best-known and best-loved works.
"Trouble at a Tavern", or "Trouble at an Inn", is a short poem by the 14th-century Welsh poet Dafydd ap Gwilym, in which the poet comically narrates the mishaps which prevent him from keeping a midnight assignation with a girl. Dafydd is widely seen as the greatest of the Welsh poets, and this is one of his best-known poems. It has been described as "glorious farce", "one of Dafydd ap Gwilym's funniest and most celebrated cywyddau", and "the most vivid of [his] poems of incident".
Daniel Huws FLSW is the world's leading authority of the last hundred years on Welsh manuscripts, with contributions that are held to represent a significant advance on those of John Gwenogvryn Evans.
Sarah Helen Prescott FLSW is Professor of English Literature at Aberystwyth University and a non-fiction writer, specializing in the history of Welsh literature in English. She is also the director of the university's Institute of Literature, Languages and Creative Arts (ILLCA).
Gruffydd Aled Williams FLSW is a scholar who specialises in Welsh medieval poetry and Renaissance literature. He was brought up in Dinmael, Denbighshire, and Glyndyfrdwy in the former county of Merioneth. Educated at Glyndyfrdwy Primary School, Llangollen Grammar School and the University College of North Wales, Bangor, he graduated in Welsh in 1964. From 1965 to 1970 he was Assistant Lecturer in Welsh at University College, Dublin, and from 1970 he was Lecturer, Senior Lecturer (1984) and Reader (1991) in the Department of Welsh at the University of Wales, Bangor. In 1995 he was appointed Professor of Welsh and Head of the Department of Welsh at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, a post he held until his retirement in 2008. He is now an emeritus Professor of the university.
Phillipp Richard SchofieldFLSW is a medieval historian and a professor in Aberystwyth University's Department of History and Welsh History.
Rhiannon Ifans, FLSW is a Welsh academic specialising in English, Medieval and Welsh literature. She was an Anthony Dyson Fellow at the Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, in University of Wales Trinity St. David. She twice won a Tir na-n-Og prize for her work and won the literary medal competition at the Welsh Eisteddfod, for her 2019 debut novel, Ingrid, which was chosen for the Welsh Literature Exchange Bookshelf. In 2020, Ifans was elected as a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales.