Celtic cosmovision and poetic vocality: tradition oral and mythological narratives of the middle age

Abstract

This article studies the vocality in the Celtic oral tradition and its reverberation in the medieval Irish and Welsh literature. With the focus on the Celtic religion, we will see the possible relationships that the druids and the bards established with words, sounds, chants and songs. This study uses sources derived from Medieval Literature, Celtic Religion and Archaeology. It observes the migration of the voice in the transition from oral to written culture, from the Ancient Celtic language to the Latin language, from Paganism to Christianity. Rather than interweaving linear sequences of real events, it aims to expand the understanding of the historicity of voice in its use, in certain historical, social and environmental contexts. Through Paul Zumthor’s concept about vocality, the Celtic mythology is approached considering its corporeal aspects, its ways of existing as a sensorial and musical perception of the environment.