SOURCE: Johnston, David. “The Serenade and the Image of the House in the Poems of Dafydd ap Gwilym.” Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies no. 5 (summer 1983): 1-19.

In the following essay, Johnston comments on the significance of the house and its prominence in Dafydd's narrative serenades.

A serenade is a poem addressed by a lover to his beloved as he stands outside her house begging to be let in. Dafydd ap Gwilym's work contains only one example of the genre, “Dan y Bargod” (89).¹ There are however a number of poems describing Dafydd's nocturnal visits to the girl's house in the past tense, which might be called narrative serenades. I shall discuss the following poems: “Amnaid” (40), “Y Ffenestr” (64), “Tri Phorthor Eiddig” (80), “Dan y Bargod” (89), “Y Rhew” (91), and “Caru yn y Gaeaf” (145).² The house itself is of central significance in all these poems. On no occasion does Dafydd succeed in entering it...