Breton literature: Barzaz Breiz, folk song and writers

What is Breton literature?

In the narrow sense it is literature in the Breton language. In the wider sense, which most readers use, it includes books by authors from Brittany who wrote in French, such as Chateaubriand, Ernest Renan or the poet Tristan Corbière. Encyclopaedias such as Britannica and university guides use both senses, so it helps to know which one a source means.

Early texts and the stage

Medieval Breton writing is thin compared with Welsh or Irish. Surviving works include religious texts and mystery plays in Middle Breton, for example a play on the life of Saint Nonne, known from a surviving manuscript. Breton lais, which belong to French and Anglo-Norman writing, show how the idea of a Breton story was already exported in the twelfth century.

Oral tradition: gwerz and sone

Most older Breton verse was sung. A gwerz is a narrative ballad, often about a crime, a shipwreck, a saint or a death, and a sone is a lighter song, often for dancing. Collectors in the nineteenth century wrote down hundreds of these. Oral literature is still studied in libraries; the Bodleian Libraries, for example, have written about Breton oral literature held at the Taylor Institution Library.

The Barzaz Breiz debate

The Barzaz Breiz is the most famous book of Breton songs. Its first edition by Théodore Hersart de La Villemarqué appeared in 1839 and later editions were enlarged. It was presented as ballads collected from singers in the countryside and it had enormous influence on how Brittany saw itself.

Later scholars, including the collector Luzel, argued that the author had reworked or composed parts of it. Most specialists now treat it as a mix of real folk material and literary rewriting, and as an important book for the history of ideas about Brittany whatever the exact mix. If you read it, read it with an introduction that discusses the debate.

Twentieth century writers

Several names recur in guides. Anjela Duval, a farmer from the Trégor, wrote poems in Breton that were admired well beyond the language community. Jean-Pierre Calloc'h, writing in the Gwened dialect, died in the First World War. The review Gwalarn, active from 1925 to 1944, aimed at a modern literary Breton and trained a generation of writers, although some of its figures are controversial for what they did during the Second World War.

Pierre-Jakez Hélias wrote Le Cheval d'orgueil, a memoir of a childhood in the Bigouden country, which was a great success in French and was published in English as The Horse of Pride. Writers such as Xavier Grall also wrote about Brittany in French.

Breton books in English

Readers without French have three routes. First, older public domain translations of folk tales and legends. Second, English translations of modern books such as The Horse of Pride. Third, academic introductions to Breton literature, many published as journal articles or in volumes from university presses, and research guides such as the Library of Congress page on Breton printed works. The research guide explains how to track them down.