Cornish literature
It attracted little attention from the scholarly world until 1876, when Whitley Stokes undertook a brief analysis of the Cornish and Welsh vocabulary found in John's marginal commentary.
[3] Pascon agan Arluth ('The Passion of our Lord'), a poem of 259 eight-line verses probably composed around 1375, is one of the earliest surviving works of Cornish literature.
The Ordinalia consists of three mystery plays, Origo Mundi, Passio Christi and Resurrexio Domini, meant to be performed on successive days.
Other notable pieces of Cornish literature include the Creation of the World (with Noah's Flood) which is a miracle play similar to Origo Mundi but in a much later manuscript (1611); the Charter Fragment, a short poem about marriage, believed to be the earliest connected text in the language; and Beunans Ke, another saint's play only discovered in 2000, notable for including some Arthurian material.
[6] Twelve of the thirteen homilies in Edmund Bonner's Homelies to be read within his diocese of London of all Parsons, vycars and curates (1555; ten of these were by John Harpsfield, two by Henry Pendleton[note 1] and one by Bonner himself)[8] were translated into Cornish by John Tregear, and are now the largest single work of traditional Cornish prose.
[6] According to Alan Kent, this could have been when Tregear was unable to remember the translation due to the significant decline in the knowledge and understanding of Cornish at the time, perhaps intending to return to correct them later.
[4] Nicholas Boson (1624−1708) wrote three significant texts in Cornish, Nebbaz gerriau dro tho Carnoack (A Few Words about Cornish) between 1675 and 1708; Jowan Chy-an-Horth, py, An try foynt a skyans (John of Chyannor, or, The three points of wisdom), published by Edward Lhuyd in 1707, though written earlier; and The Dutchess of Cornwall's Progress, partly in English, now known only in fragments.
Of the early pieces the most significant is the so-called "Cranken Rhyme" produced by John Davey of Boswednack, one of the last people with some traditional knowledge of the language.
Works of this period were generally printed in limited publications by authors far removed from Cornwall and each other; their importance to the later revival movement was not fully recognized for decades.
Notable writers of the time include Edward Chirgwin and A. S. D. Smith, whose epic poem Trystan hag Isolt, a reworking of the Tristan and Iseult legend, is one of the most celebrated pieces of Cornish revival writing.
Me rig scantlower clowes eden ger Sowsnack cowes en cock rag sythen warebar.
My a wrug skant lowr klowes udn ger Sowsnek kowsys y’n kok rag seythen war-barth.
Nag es mouy vel pager po pemp en dreav nye ell clapia Cornoack leben, Nag eus moy vel pajar po pemp y'n drev nei a yll klappya Kernowek lebmyn, There are no more than four or five in our village who can speak Cornish now, poble coath pager egance blouth.
The earliest was Melville Bennetto's An Gurun Wosek a Geltya (The Bloody Crown of the Celtic Countries) in 1984; subsequently Michael Palmer published five novels including Jory (1989) and Dyvroans (1998).
Kaspar Hocking's abridgement of Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days was published as Adro dhe'n Bÿs in Peswar Ugans Dëdh (ISBN 978-1-904808-21-3), and Eddie Foirbeis Climo's Kensa Lyver Redya (ISBN 978-1-904808-24-4) 'First Reading Book', a translation of Harriette Taylor Treadwell and Margaret Free's Primer, was published as well.
[15] Others appeared in Kernewek Kemmyn, such as Polin Prys' Kas ha Dial (Hate and Revenge) and the Broder Wella (Brother William) collection of short stories by Jowann Richards.
The advent of the Standard Written Form in 2008 saw the translation of Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince (An Pennsevik Byhan) in 2010, and several novels by Rod Lyon, Dhe Emlow an Galaksi (To the edges of the galaxy) in 2015, Tenkys (Fate) in 2016 and Dicky Holla in 2017.
A list of many titles including translations and original stories for adults and children can be found on the Cornish language page.
