Matthieu Boyd
I am Professor of Literature and chair of the School of the Humanities at Fairleigh Dickinson University. I work in nearly all the medieval and modern Celtic languages and literatures (Irish, Breton, Welsh, and Scottish Gaelic), and their neighbors Old and Middle English, Old Norse, Medieval Latin, and particularly Old French and Anglo-Norman. We need all these languages, and more, for a full understanding of the multilingualism and multiculturalism that have surrounded and shaped the literary history of Britain and Ireland from the Age of Bede to the twenty-first century. Within this framework, one of my priorities is to show what Celtic Studies has to offer other disciplines, particularly English and Comparative Literature.
My degrees are from Princeton (AB, French); Stumdi (intensive year course in Modern Breton); University College Dublin (Higher Diploma in Early Irish Language and Literature); and Harvard (PhD in Celtic Languages and Literatures, with a secondary field in Medieval Studies, and Certificate in TESOL).
I am a Contributing Editor to the third edition of the Broadview Anthology of British Literature; co-editor and primary translator, with K. Sarah-Jane Murray, of a collaborative translation of the 72,000-line "Ovide moralisé" (Moralized Ovid) in medieval French; and book review editor of the North American Journal of Celtic Studies.
In the past I have been President of the International Marie de France Society; an At-Large Member of the executive of the Celtic Studies Association of North America (CSANA); a member of the Advisory Committee of the North American Branch of the International Arthurian Society; a member of the executive of the MLA Discussion Group on Celtic Languages and Literatures; an associate of the Department of Celtic Languages and Literatures at Harvard University; and director of FDU's unique MA in Creative Writing and Literature for Educators.
I am delighted to answer questions about Celtic languages and literatures. Especially if you are teaching a Celtic-language text in translation, or thinking about it, please be in touch if you think I can help.
Address: Fairleigh Dickinson University
M-MS3-01
285 Madison Avenue
Madison, NJ 07940
U.S.A.
My degrees are from Princeton (AB, French); Stumdi (intensive year course in Modern Breton); University College Dublin (Higher Diploma in Early Irish Language and Literature); and Harvard (PhD in Celtic Languages and Literatures, with a secondary field in Medieval Studies, and Certificate in TESOL).
I am a Contributing Editor to the third edition of the Broadview Anthology of British Literature; co-editor and primary translator, with K. Sarah-Jane Murray, of a collaborative translation of the 72,000-line "Ovide moralisé" (Moralized Ovid) in medieval French; and book review editor of the North American Journal of Celtic Studies.
In the past I have been President of the International Marie de France Society; an At-Large Member of the executive of the Celtic Studies Association of North America (CSANA); a member of the Advisory Committee of the North American Branch of the International Arthurian Society; a member of the executive of the MLA Discussion Group on Celtic Languages and Literatures; an associate of the Department of Celtic Languages and Literatures at Harvard University; and director of FDU's unique MA in Creative Writing and Literature for Educators.
I am delighted to answer questions about Celtic languages and literatures. Especially if you are teaching a Celtic-language text in translation, or thinking about it, please be in touch if you think I can help.
Address: Fairleigh Dickinson University
M-MS3-01
285 Madison Avenue
Madison, NJ 07940
U.S.A.
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Books by Matthieu Boyd
*
The first ever translation of an influential monument of medieval literature and thought.
The anonymous Ovide moralisé (Moralized Ovid), composed in France in the fourteenth century, retells and explicates Ovid's Metamorphoses, with generous helpings of related texts, for a Christian audience. Working from the premise that everything in the universe, including the pagan authors of Greco-Roman Antiquity, is part of God's plan and expresses God's truth even without knowing it, the Ovide moralisé is a massive and influential work of synthesis and creativity: a remarkable window into a certain kind of medieval thinking. It is of major importance across time and across many disciplines, including literature, philosophy, theology, and art history.
This volume offers an English translation of this hugely important text - the first into any modern language. Based on the only complete edition to date, that by Cornelis de Boer and others completed in 1938, it also reflects more recent editions and numerous manuscript readings. The translation is accompanied by a substantial introduction, situating the Ovide moralisé in terms of the reception of Ovid, the mythographical tradition, and its medieval French religious and intellectual milieu. Notes discuss textual problems and sources, and relate the text to key issues in the thought of theologians, such as Bonaventure and Aquinas.
*
Translated and edited by K. Sarah-Jane Murray and Matthieu Boyd, with contributions from William W. Kibler, Glyn S. Burgess, Cristian Bratu, Raymond Cormier, Anne-Hélène Miller, Ed Ouellette, Valerie Wilhite, and Monica Wright.
The essays in Ollam represent cutting-edge research in Celtic philology and historical and literary studies. They form three clusters: heroic legend; law and language; and poetry and poetics. The 21 contributors are among the best Celtic Studies scholars of their respective generations, whether they are rising stars or great professors at the finest universities around the world. The book has a Foreword by William Gillies, Emeritus Professor at the University of Edinburgh and former President of the International Congress of Celtic Studies, who also contributed an essay on courtly love-poetry in the Book of the Dean of Lismore. Other highlight include a new edition and translation of the famous poem Messe ocus Pangur bán; a suite of articles on the ideal king of Irish tradition, Cormac mac Airt; and studies on well-known heroes like Cú Chulainn and Finn mac Cumaill.
This book will be a must-have, and a treat, for Celtic specialists. To nonspecialists it offers a glimpse at the vast creative energy of Gaelic literature through the ages and of Celtic Studies in the twenty-first century.
Ó Cathasaigh has been called “the father of early Irish literary criticism,” with writings among the most influential in the field. He pioneered the analysis of the classic early Irish tales as literary texts, a breakthrough at a time when they were valued mainly as repositories of grammatical forms, historical data, and mythological debris. All four of the Mythological, Ulster, King, and Finn Cycles are represented here in readings of richness, complexity, and sophistication, supported by absolute philological rigor and yet easy for the non-specialist to follow. The book covers key terms, important characters, recurring themes, rhetorical strategies, and the narrative logic of this literature. It also surveys the work of the many others whose explorations were launched by Ó Cathasaigh's first encounters with the texts.
As the most authoritative single volume on the essential texts and themes of early Irish saga, this collection will be an indispensable resource for established scholars, and an ideal introduction for newcomers to one of the richest and most under-studied literatures of medieval Europe.
Tomás Ó Cathasaigh is the Henry L. Shattuck Professor of Irish Studies in the Department of Celtic Languages and Literatures at Harvard University.
Matthieu Boyd is an assistant professor in the Department of Literature, Language, Writing, and Philosophy at Fairleigh Dickinson University.
“Tomás Ó Cathasaigh is that rare scholar in Celtic studies whose work has much to say not only to advanced scholars in the field but also to specialists dealing with other literatures, comparative mythologists, and undergraduates. Our understanding of medieval Irish epic and saga is immeasurably enriched by his elegant writing style, his erudition, and his wide-ranging critical eye. It is indeed a bounteous blessing, then, to have collected in this volume Ó Cathasaigh’s best, most representative, and most useful work.”
—Joseph Nagy, University of California, Los Angeles""
- a book co-authored with Barbara Hillers, "The Man Who Never Slept: The Irish Merman Legend and the Lai de Tydorel";
- a translation of François-Marie Luzel’s Gwerziou Breiz-Izel (The Ballads of Western Brittany);
- and a companion to the Breton legend of the drowned city of Ys, which has been a passion of mine for many years.
I am the editor (with Tina Chance, Aled Llion Jones, Edyta Lehmann, and Sarah Zeiser) of Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium 26/27 (2006-07) (ISBN: 9780674053434; distributed by Harvard University Press).
Papers by Matthieu Boyd
Recent work on multilingualism in the Early Middle English period justifies thinking in terms of the total linguistic and cultural ecosystem of Britain and Ireland. The Celtic-speaking peoples are an integral part of this ecosystem and should be treated as such, not just as a source of raw material for literary developments in the English, French, and Latin of “trilingual England.” This article suggests some basic principles for engaging with Celtic languages and literatures in this broader context and offers specific advice for our teaching practice.
*
The first ever translation of an influential monument of medieval literature and thought.
The anonymous Ovide moralisé (Moralized Ovid), composed in France in the fourteenth century, retells and explicates Ovid's Metamorphoses, with generous helpings of related texts, for a Christian audience. Working from the premise that everything in the universe, including the pagan authors of Greco-Roman Antiquity, is part of God's plan and expresses God's truth even without knowing it, the Ovide moralisé is a massive and influential work of synthesis and creativity: a remarkable window into a certain kind of medieval thinking. It is of major importance across time and across many disciplines, including literature, philosophy, theology, and art history.
This volume offers an English translation of this hugely important text - the first into any modern language. Based on the only complete edition to date, that by Cornelis de Boer and others completed in 1938, it also reflects more recent editions and numerous manuscript readings. The translation is accompanied by a substantial introduction, situating the Ovide moralisé in terms of the reception of Ovid, the mythographical tradition, and its medieval French religious and intellectual milieu. Notes discuss textual problems and sources, and relate the text to key issues in the thought of theologians, such as Bonaventure and Aquinas.
*
Translated and edited by K. Sarah-Jane Murray and Matthieu Boyd, with contributions from William W. Kibler, Glyn S. Burgess, Cristian Bratu, Raymond Cormier, Anne-Hélène Miller, Ed Ouellette, Valerie Wilhite, and Monica Wright.
The essays in Ollam represent cutting-edge research in Celtic philology and historical and literary studies. They form three clusters: heroic legend; law and language; and poetry and poetics. The 21 contributors are among the best Celtic Studies scholars of their respective generations, whether they are rising stars or great professors at the finest universities around the world. The book has a Foreword by William Gillies, Emeritus Professor at the University of Edinburgh and former President of the International Congress of Celtic Studies, who also contributed an essay on courtly love-poetry in the Book of the Dean of Lismore. Other highlight include a new edition and translation of the famous poem Messe ocus Pangur bán; a suite of articles on the ideal king of Irish tradition, Cormac mac Airt; and studies on well-known heroes like Cú Chulainn and Finn mac Cumaill.
This book will be a must-have, and a treat, for Celtic specialists. To nonspecialists it offers a glimpse at the vast creative energy of Gaelic literature through the ages and of Celtic Studies in the twenty-first century.
Ó Cathasaigh has been called “the father of early Irish literary criticism,” with writings among the most influential in the field. He pioneered the analysis of the classic early Irish tales as literary texts, a breakthrough at a time when they were valued mainly as repositories of grammatical forms, historical data, and mythological debris. All four of the Mythological, Ulster, King, and Finn Cycles are represented here in readings of richness, complexity, and sophistication, supported by absolute philological rigor and yet easy for the non-specialist to follow. The book covers key terms, important characters, recurring themes, rhetorical strategies, and the narrative logic of this literature. It also surveys the work of the many others whose explorations were launched by Ó Cathasaigh's first encounters with the texts.
As the most authoritative single volume on the essential texts and themes of early Irish saga, this collection will be an indispensable resource for established scholars, and an ideal introduction for newcomers to one of the richest and most under-studied literatures of medieval Europe.
Tomás Ó Cathasaigh is the Henry L. Shattuck Professor of Irish Studies in the Department of Celtic Languages and Literatures at Harvard University.
Matthieu Boyd is an assistant professor in the Department of Literature, Language, Writing, and Philosophy at Fairleigh Dickinson University.
“Tomás Ó Cathasaigh is that rare scholar in Celtic studies whose work has much to say not only to advanced scholars in the field but also to specialists dealing with other literatures, comparative mythologists, and undergraduates. Our understanding of medieval Irish epic and saga is immeasurably enriched by his elegant writing style, his erudition, and his wide-ranging critical eye. It is indeed a bounteous blessing, then, to have collected in this volume Ó Cathasaigh’s best, most representative, and most useful work.”
—Joseph Nagy, University of California, Los Angeles""
- a book co-authored with Barbara Hillers, "The Man Who Never Slept: The Irish Merman Legend and the Lai de Tydorel";
- a translation of François-Marie Luzel’s Gwerziou Breiz-Izel (The Ballads of Western Brittany);
- and a companion to the Breton legend of the drowned city of Ys, which has been a passion of mine for many years.
I am the editor (with Tina Chance, Aled Llion Jones, Edyta Lehmann, and Sarah Zeiser) of Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium 26/27 (2006-07) (ISBN: 9780674053434; distributed by Harvard University Press).
Recent work on multilingualism in the Early Middle English period justifies thinking in terms of the total linguistic and cultural ecosystem of Britain and Ireland. The Celtic-speaking peoples are an integral part of this ecosystem and should be treated as such, not just as a source of raw material for literary developments in the English, French, and Latin of “trilingual England.” This article suggests some basic principles for engaging with Celtic languages and literatures in this broader context and offers specific advice for our teaching practice.
This chapter considers how college HEL courses can stay relevant to preservice teachers, an important constituency, by addressing the Common Core State Standards for K-12 education, which affect most teachers in the U.S. The Standards make many demands regarding traditional concepts in formal grammar and usage, and very few regarding HEL, which could endanger enrollments in HEL courses. This chapter identifies Standards related to grammar and usage where a historical perspective would be valuable, and suggests ways of integrating them with HEL instruction, as well as potential payoffs of such an approach.
(I have a limited number of access codes to read this article for free - email me at mwboyd at fdu dot edu if you're interested!)
This list is not exhaustive. It focuses on works consulted when preparing the translation, and on recent publications. Many items here are not for everyone, but may be helpful for working on papers and theses. Sources for the supporting documents (Welsh Laws, Triads, Gerald of Wales) are not repeated here.