Notes · WelshUK · A-Levels

Yr Hengerdd a'r Cywyddau (Early and Medieval Poetry)

Section B of A2 Unit 5 sets six poems across roughly eight centuries: two awdlau from Y Gododdin attributed to Aneirin, two poems attributed to Taliesin — Gwaith Argoed Llwyfain and Marwnad Owain ab Urien — and three cywyddau of Dafydd ap Gwilym: Mis Mai a Mis Tachwedd, Yr Wylan and Trafferth mewn Tafarn. Edited versions are supplied through WJEC's own resources site. The examination question asks candidates to respond to TWO of the prescribed poems: part (i) discusses the background of the poet and of the poem printed on the paper, and part (ii) discusses the writing techniques of an extract from ANOTHER prescribed poem. Attribution, dating and canon are all genuinely contested here, and these notes attribute the disagreements rather than settling them. They also print no invented lines of cynghanedd: the reading method is taught in full and the examples must come from the poems themselves.

5 sections~32 min reading time3 competenciesLevel Foundation 1 · Standard 2 · Advanced 2

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Exam profile

AO2 · Demonstrate knowledge of specific texts and their background by means of a critical analysis which discusses and evaluates other interpretationsAO2 · Appreciate and respond to literary texts coherently by selecting and interpreting relevant material; refer specifically to the original text and justify the referenceAO3 · Write correctly, clearly and proficiently, demonstrating a range of linguistic resources

Operators:discussanalyseexplainevaluatecomparejustifyidentifyrespond

basic level

This section is not available at AS. Read the six poems in their edited versions early even so: the vocabulary of strict-metre craft that they require is the same vocabulary that makes a Unit 3 poetry essay stronger, and the earlier it becomes familiar the less it costs later.

higher level

The question's structure means you cannot rely on one poem. Part (i) takes the poem printed on the paper and part (ii) takes an extract from a DIFFERENT prescribed poem, so at least two must be known — and since you do not choose which is printed, all six should be. That is the practical fact that governs how this section is revised.

Depth

Text

Contents · 5 sections

Yr Hengerdd a'r Cywyddau (Early and Medieval Poetry)

What Section B asks: two poems, two different questions#

FoundationA2 Unit 5 Section B Yr Hengerdd a'r Cywyddau — the names of the poets and the titles of the poems to be studied are noted in the specification; edited versions should be studied and are available via WJEC's electronic resourceIn the examination candidates respond to two of the prescribed poems: (i) discuss the background of the poet and the prescribed poem quoted on the paper; (ii) discuss the writing techniques of an extract from another prescribed poemCandidates will be expected to respond personally in addition to discussing other interpretations, and should make appropriate use of quotations and terminology for literary criticismUnit 5 — 20% of the A level, AO2 13.3% and AO3 6.7%; two questions to be answered; dictionaries prohibited; synoptic assessment

The six prescribed poems, their manuscripts and what is contested

Fig. 1Six poems, three transmissions, three different kinds of scholarly dispute. The emphasised cell names the disagreement a candidate must be able to describe rather than settle: whether any of the surviving Gododdin descends from a sixth-century original is a live question, and the manuscript that preserves it is thirteenth-century.

Section B has an unusual and very specific architecture, and understanding it settles most of the revision strategy. Candidates respond to TWO of the prescribed poems, and the two parts of the question do different jobs. Part (i) takes the poem printed on the paper and asks about the BACKGROUND of the poet and of that poem. Part (ii) takes an extract from ANOTHER prescribed poem and asks about its WRITING TECHNIQUES. So one poem is examined for its context and a different one for its craft, and you do not choose which poem is printed.

That structure has a hard consequence. Since the printed poem is not yours to select and part (ii) requires a different one, you need at least two poems ready — and because any of the six could be the printed one, all six need to be known. There is no viable strategy of learning two well and hoping. Six poems is not a large syllabus: two awdlau from Y Gododdin, two poems attributed to Taliesin, and three cywyddau of Dafydd ap Gwilym. They are, however, spread across roughly eight centuries and three quite different poetic worlds, which is where the work is.

The two parts also want different kinds of knowledge, and preparing them as one job is the commonest mistake here. Background is historical and scholarly: who the poet was said to be, what is known and what is contested, what manuscript preserves the poem, what tradition it belongs to, what the poem's occasion was. Writing techniques are formal and textual: metre, cynghanedd, structure, imagery, the poem's characteristic devices. A revision file that mixes the two produces answers in which context leaks into the craft question and craft leaks into the context question, and both are diluted.

The specification names the resource. Edited versions of the poems should be studied and are available via the electronic resource Yr Hengerdd a'r Cywyddau on WJEC's own resources site. As in Section A, what you study is an edition: for the Hengerdd particularly, the editorial work involved in producing a readable text from a thirteenth- or fourteenth-century manuscript of much older material is substantial, and saying that you are reading an edited text is both accurate and a mark of understanding. No dictionary is allowed in this unit.

Worked example

Building the two files so that neither leaks into the other

Take one poem and build both its pages, then show what belongs on each and what belongs on neither.

The background page — six lines
Poet: who they are said to be, and on what authority. Tradition: which body of poetry the poem belongs to and what that tradition characteristically does. Manuscript: what preserves it, and when that manuscript was written. Date: the range, and who argues for what. Occasion: what the poem was for, so far as that is recoverable. Contested: one line naming the live question. Six lines and no analysis of the verse at all.
The technique page — six lines
Metre: the form, named in Welsh, with its syllable count or its rhyme scheme. Ornament: whether cynghanedd is present, and if so which types you can identify. Structure: how the poem is built and where it turns. Devices: the two or three the poem returns to. Register and diction: what kind of words it uses. And one passage marked as the one you would analyse if it were the printed extract. Six lines and no biography.
What belongs on neither
Your general opinion of the poem, which will arrive in the examination anyway and does not need storing; a summary of its content, which the printed text supplies; and anything you cannot source. The temptation with medieval material is to accumulate atmosphere — a general sense of antiquity and heroism — which reads well in a revision file and produces nothing in an answer, because it cannot be pointed at.
The one line that belongs on both
Where a formal feature IS the background — where the poem's craft is evidence about its period or its tradition — put it on both pages and mark it. The classic case is a poem whose ornament belongs to a later stage of the tradition than its supposed date, which is exactly the kind of evidence the dating arguments turn on. That single line is where the two files touch, and knowing it is the mark of a candidate who has understood why the disputes exist.
Then test the separation
Cover the technique page and write part (i) from the background page alone. Cover the background page and write part (ii) from the technique page alone. If either answer feels impossible, the file is incomplete; if either answer keeps reaching for the other page, the material is on the wrong page. Twelve pages, six poems, and the section is prepared.

Result: Two six-line pages per poem: background (poet, tradition, manuscript, date range with who argues what, occasion, the contested question) and technique (metre, ornament, structure, devices, diction, the passage you would analyse). One line may belong to both — where a formal feature is itself evidence about date or tradition. Test by writing each part from one page alone.

Typical mistakes

Preparing two poems thoroughly and the other four not at all.
Writing about craft in part (i) and about context in part (ii), so both answers are half-relevant.
Treating the Hengerdd and the cywyddau as one body of poetry with one set of tools.
Forgetting that the poems studied are modern editions of medieval manuscripts.

Active revision

Build two separate files, not one. File A: six background pages, one per poem — poet, tradition, manuscript, date, what is disputed, occasion. File B: six technique pages — metre, ornament, structure, characteristic devices, one passage you could analyse. Then practise by drawing one poem at random for part (i) and a different one at random for part (ii), which is exactly what the examination does.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: WJEC GCE AS/A level Welsh (First Language) specification — A2 Unit 5 Section B, Yr Hengerdd a'r Cywyddau (WJEC CBAC)

Yr Hengerdd: Aneirin, Taliesin, and what is genuinely disputed#

StandardUnit 5 Section B — Awdlau I ac XXIV o'r Gododdin: Aneirin; Gwaith Argoed Llwyfain: Taliesin; Marwnad Owain ab Urien: TaliesinUnit 5 Section B part (i) — discuss the background of the poet and the prescribed poem quoted on the paperCandidates are expected to respond personally in addition to discussing other interpretations (by other pupils, teachers and literary critics)

Yr Hengerdd — the old poetry — is the earliest stratum of Welsh literature, and the two poets prescribed here belong to the Cynfeirdd, the earliest poets, whose names come down from a passage in the ninth-century Historia Brittonum naming poets said to have flourished in the sixth century. The later Welsh literary tradition divides into recognised periods, and knowing the names is useful for the background question: the Cynfeirdd first, then the Gogynfeirdd or Beirdd y Tywysogion, the poets of the princes, working roughly from the twelfth century to the fall of the native principality in 1282, and then the Cywyddwyr, the poets of the cywydd, from the fourteenth century onward — the tradition Dafydd ap Gwilym belongs to.

Y Gododdin survives in one manuscript: Llyfr Aneirin, written in the thirteenth century by two scribes whose work is conventionally distinguished, one of whom preserves markedly older orthography than the other. The poem is a sequence of elegies for the warriors of the Gododdin — the people the Romans called the Votadini, based in what is now south-east Scotland — who rode to a place called Catraeth and were destroyed there. Catraeth is usually identified with Catterick in North Yorkshire, though the identification is not certain. Whether any of the text descends from a sixth-century original transmitted orally is one of the genuinely open questions in early Welsh scholarship: Sir Ifor Williams argued for an early core, and more sceptical scholars have argued that the surviving text is much later. Describe the argument; do not settle it.

The word awdl in the specification's phrase 'Awdlau I ac XXIV o'r Gododdin' does not mean what it means at a modern Eisteddfod. In the Hengerdd an awdl is a run of lines on a single rhyme — a monorhyme stanza — while the eisteddfodic awdl is a long poem in the twenty-four strict metres, a much later development. Reading the older sense into the later one, or the later into the older, is a real error and an easy one, and getting it right is a cheap way to show that you understand the tradition rather than a set of terms.

Taliesin's poems survive in Llyfr Taliesin, a fourteenth-century manuscript. Not everything in that book can plausibly be the work of a sixth-century poet: a great deal of it is later legendary and prophetic material attached to the Taliesin persona, which became a figure of Welsh tradition in its own right. Ifor Williams's identification of a small group of poems within the book as plausibly the work of the historical Taliesin, court poet to Urien Rheged, is widely followed, and the two prescribed poems belong to that group. It remains a scholarly judgement rather than a fact, and saying so is both accurate and the kind of remark part (i) is built to reward. Note also that gwaith in Gwaith Argoed Llwyfain carries its older sense of a battle or action rather than the modern sense of work.

Worked example

Answering part (i) on an Hengerdd poem

The printed poem is one of the Hengerdd items. Build the background answer in five moves, each of which must be defensible.

The poet, and on what authority
“Enwir Aneirin ymhlith y beirdd y dywedir iddyn nhw flodeuo yn y chweched ganrif, ac o'r ffynhonnell honno y daw popeth a wyddom am ei fodolaeth.” The construction y dywedir iddyn nhw does the work: it reports rather than asserts, which is the correct relation to the evidence. Note flodeuo with the soft mutation after iddyn nhw.
The tradition the poem belongs to
“Mae'r gerdd yn perthyn i'r Hengerdd, gwaith y Cynfeirdd, sef y garfan gynharaf o feirdd yn y Gymraeg.” One sentence, naming the body of poetry and its position. This is what the specification means by the background of the poem as distinct from the background of the poet, and it is a claim that can be made with no hedging at all.
The transmission
“Yn un llawysgrif yn unig y goroesodd Y Gododdin — Llyfr Aneirin, o'r drydedd ganrif ar ddeg — a gwaith dau gopïydd sydd ynddi, gyda'r naill yn cadw orgraff sylweddol hŷn na'r llall.” Facts about the manuscript, stated plainly. The two-scribe detail is worth having because it is the concrete thing that makes the dating argument possible.
What is disputed, and by whom
“Mae'n destun dadl a yw'r testun sydd wedi goroesi'n disgyn o wreiddiol o'r chweched ganrif: dadleuodd Ifor Williams o blaid craidd cynnar a drosglwyddwyd ar lafar, tra bo eraill wedi dadlau bod y testun fel y mae'n llawer diweddarach.” Name the question, name a position with its holder, indicate the other side. This is the paragraph that separates a prepared candidate from an informed one.
The occasion, and the poem's own logic
“Marwnadau ydyn nhw, i wŷr a aeth i Gatraeth ac a laddwyd yno; y farwnad, felly, yw ffurf a phwrpas y gerdd, ac mae hynny'n esbonio'r ailadrodd sy'n rhedeg drwyddi.” End the background answer by connecting occasion to form, because that is the sentence that turns context into a reading — which is what part (i) wants and what a purely historical answer never reaches.

Result: Five moves: the poet reported rather than asserted; the tradition named without hedging; the manuscript with its date and its two scribes; the dating dispute with a named position on each side; and finally the occasion connected to the form, so that the background becomes a reading rather than a paragraph of history.

Typical mistakes

Stating a sixth-century date for the surviving Gododdin text as though it were established.
Using awdl in its modern eisteddfodic sense when discussing the Gododdin.
Treating everything in Llyfr Taliesin as the work of one sixth-century poet.
Reading gwaith in Gwaith Argoed Llwyfain as 'work' rather than 'battle'.

Active revision

Write the background page for each of the three Hengerdd items as a single paragraph of Welsh you could reproduce under pressure, and make sure every claim in it is hedged exactly as far as the evidence requires. Then read the three paragraphs and count the hedges. If there are none, you have overstated something; if every clause is hedged, you have said nothing. Four or five precise hedges across three paragraphs is about right.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: WJEC GCE AS/A level Welsh (First Language) specification — Unit 5 Section B prescribed poems and the background requirement (WJEC CBAC)

Dafydd ap Gwilym and the cywydd#

StandardUnit 5 Section B — Mis Mai a Mis Tachwedd, Yr Wylan and Trafferth mewn Tafarn: Dafydd ap GwilymUnit 5 Section B part (ii) — discuss the writing techniques of an extract from another prescribed poemCandidates should make appropriate use of quotations and terminology for literary criticism

Dafydd ap Gwilym worked in the fourteenth century and is by common consent the outstanding Welsh poet of his age. He is associated by tradition with Brogynin in Ceredigion. He belongs to the Cywyddwyr, the generation and the tradition that made the cywydd the dominant literary metre of Welsh poetry for the next three centuries, displacing the awdl forms of the poets of the princes. That shift is itself background worth knowing: the cywydd is shorter, more flexible and more personal than the ceremonial poetry that preceded it, and Dafydd's subject matter — love, the natural world, comedy at his own expense — belongs to that change rather than merely coinciding with it.

His canon is contested, and the reason is transmission. No autograph survives and no contemporary manuscript of his work; the poems come down in copies made considerably later, and a great many poems have at one time or another been attributed to him. Thomas Parry's edition of 1952 established a standard text for the second half of the twentieth century, and the Dafydd ap Gwilym project of the University of Wales, edited by Dafydd Johnston and others and published in 2007, revised the canon on the basis of a fresh examination of the manuscripts, admitting 147 poems. A candidate who knows that the canon has been revised, and why, has the material for a strong sentence in part (i).

Three techniques recur in his work and they are the vocabulary part (ii) needs. DYFALU is the piling up of comparisons — a sequence of metaphors and riddling descriptions applied to one thing, so that the object is approached from every side at once rather than named. The LLATAI is a convention, the love-messenger: an animal, a bird or a natural force sent by the poet to carry a message to a woman, and Yr Wylan's title places it in that tradition. And there is the comic self-portrait, in which the poet is the butt of his own narrative rather than its hero — the mode Trafferth mewn Tafarn is universally known for.

The cywydd itself is a form and part (ii) expects it to be named accurately. It is written in couplets of seven-syllable lines; the two lines of a couplet rhyme, but one rhyme falls on a stressed final syllable and the other on an unstressed one, so that the couplet never settles into a flat chime; and every line carries cynghanedd. That last requirement is the important one: a cywydd is a strict-metre poem throughout, not a rhymed poem with ornament added. Saying that a technique 'is used' in a cywydd misses the point — the constraint is continuous, and what a candidate should be looking for is what the poet does WITHIN it.

Worked example

Answering part (ii) on a cywydd extract

An extract from one of the cywyddau is printed and the question asks about its writing techniques. Build the answer so that it is about the poem rather than about the form in general.

Establish the form in one sentence, then move on
“Cywydd ydy hwn: cwpledi o linellau seithsill, gyda'r odl yn disgyn ar sillaf acennog mewn un llinell ac ar sillaf ddiacen yn y llall, a chynghanedd ym mhob llinell.” One sentence. Candidates who spend a paragraph on the definition of the cywydd have written about the metre rather than about the extract, and the question asked about the extract.
Point at what the poet does inside the constraint
Because every line must carry cynghanedd, the interesting question is never whether it is there but what it costs and what it buys — which words the ornament has drawn in, whether the sound patterning falls on the words that carry the sense, and where the poet has clearly chosen a word for its consonants. Naming one such place is worth more than naming the type of every line.
Name the technique the extract actually uses
If the passage piles comparisons on one object, name it: “dyfalu”, and say what the accumulation does — usually that it delays or refuses a plain naming, and that the delay is the effect. If the poem is addressing a messenger, name the llatai convention and say what the convention permits the poet to say that direct address would not. Name, then explain what the naming buys.
Read the register
Dafydd's comic poems move between registers, and the movement is a technique. A high courtly diction applied to an undignified situation is not an accident of vocabulary; it is the joke's mechanism. Pointing at a place where the register is higher or lower than the situation warrants, and saying what the mismatch achieves, is one of the strongest observations available on this material.
Then the personal response
The specification asks candidates to respond personally as well as discussing other interpretations, and part (ii) is where a genuine response belongs — but it must be a response to the CRAFT, not a report of enjoyment. “Yr hyn sy'n aros efo fi ydy pa mor gyflym y mae'r gerdd yn symud er gwaethaf y cyfyngiadau — mae'r mesur i fod i arafu pethau, ac yma dydy o ddim.” That is personal, arguable, and about technique.

Result: One sentence on the form, then straight to what the poet does inside the constraint: which words the cynghanedd has drawn in, the named technique (dyfalu, llatai) with what it buys, and the register mismatch that makes a comic poem work. The personal response belongs here too — but as a response to the craft, not to the enjoyment.

Typical mistakes

Writing as though the canon were settled and the text uncontested.
Treating cynghanedd in a cywydd as an occasional ornament rather than a continuous requirement.
Describing dyfalu as simply 'lots of metaphors' rather than as a sustained approach to one object.
Missing the llatai convention in a poem whose title announces it.

Active revision

Take one of the three prescribed cywyddau and mark up a passage of about eight lines completely: syllable count per line, the rhyme of each couplet and which member is stressed, and — using the consonant-skeleton method — what ornament each line carries. It is slow the first time and quick by the third. That page is the model for anything part (ii) can ask of a strict-metre poem.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: WJEC GCE AS/A level Welsh (First Language) specification — Unit 5 Section B, the prescribed cywyddau (WJEC CBAC)

Crefft: the strict metres, cynghanedd, and how to read a line#

AdvancedUnit 5 Section B part (ii) — discuss the writing techniques of an extract from another prescribed poemCandidates should be taught to make appropriate use of quotations and terminology for literary criticismAO2 — refer specifically to the original text and justify the reference

The strict-metre vocabulary Section B expects

Fig. 2The vocabulary, with the rule and the claim each term licenses. The emphasised cell is the distinction that most often goes wrong: awdl in the Hengerdd is a monorhyme run, which is what the specification means by 'awdlau I and XXIV of the Gododdin' — not the long strict-metre poem of a modern Eisteddfod.

Cynghanedd is a system of obligatory sound-patterning within the line, and it is the defining craft of Welsh strict-metre poetry. It comes in four kinds. CYNGHANEDD GROES divides the line at a caesura and requires the consonants of the first part to be answered, in the same order, in the second. CYNGHANEDD DRAWS does the same but permits a run of unanswered consonants at the start of the second part, which is crossed over before the answering begins. CYNGHANEDD SAIN divides the line into three parts, with rhyme between the first and second and consonantal answering between the second and third. CYNGHANEDD LUSG works by internal rhyme: a syllable inside the line rhymes with the stressed penultimate syllable of the line's final word.

These notes deliberately print no invented lines. A constructed line of cynghanedd is either correct or it is not, and a reader of Welsh can check it in seconds; an invented example that fails its own rule would teach the opposite of what it claims. What is taught here instead is the READING METHOD, which is the skill an examination actually needs. Take a line from the poem in front of you and write out its consonants in order, ignoring the vowels and ignoring h. Then look for a division: if the sequence before it is answered after it, you have a groes or a draws; if the line falls into three with rhyme and then consonance, a sain; if a word inside the line rhymes with the stress of the final word, a lusg. Your examples come from the prescribed poems, where every line is the real thing.

Beware of applying the wrong vocabulary to the wrong period, because it is the commonest error on this section and it is entirely avoidable. Cynghanedd as a codified system with named types belongs to the strict-metre tradition of the Cywyddwyr and after. The Hengerdd has rich alliterative and rhyming ornament, and the later system grew out of that older practice, but the two are not the same thing and the named types do not straightforwardly apply to the Gododdin. A candidate who writes about cynghanedd groes in a sixth-century-attributed poem has made a claim that is anachronistic, and it is more conspicuous than a missed observation would have been.

The forms themselves also need naming correctly. The CYWYDD is couplets of seven-syllable lines, rhyming stressed against unstressed, cynghanedd throughout. The ENGLYN UNODL UNION, the commonest englyn, is four lines of ten, six, seven and seven syllables, with the main rhyme arriving before the end of the first line and a short tail — the gair cyrch — following it. The AWDL means two different things in two different periods: a monorhyme run in the Hengerdd, and a long poem in the twenty-four strict metres at a modern Eisteddfod. Getting that last distinction right is worth a sentence in almost any Section B answer.

Worked example

Reading a line as a consonant skeleton, and what to do with the result

The extract is printed in front of you and you want to say something precise about its craft. Run the method on one line and turn the finding into a claim.

Write the consonants out, in order
Take the line and list its consonants left to right, ignoring every vowel and ignoring h, which does not count in the system. Treat the digraphs as single units — ch, dd, ff, ng, ll, ph, rh, th are one letter each in Welsh and one consonant each here, which is exactly why the alphabet treats them as letters. Two minutes, on paper, in the margin of the question.
Look for the division
Read the line aloud in your head and find where it naturally breaks. Then compare the sequence before the break with the sequence after it. If the second answers the first in order from the start, you are looking at a groes; if there is an unanswered run at the beginning of the second part before the answering begins, a draws. If the line falls into three rather than two, look for rhyme between the first two parts and consonance between the last two, which is a sain.
Check for the internal rhyme instead
If neither pattern appears, test for lusg: does a syllable somewhere inside the line rhyme with the stressed penultimate syllable of the line's final word? Lusg is the easiest to miss because it is an ear pattern rather than a visible one, and it is the one that most often accounts for a line that clearly sounds worked but shows no consonant answering.
Turn the finding into a claim, not a label
Identifying the type is the observation; the claim is what it does. “Mae'r llinell yn dwyn dwy gytsain drom i mewn nad ydyn nhw'n angenrheidiol i'r ystyr, ac mae'r ateb sy'n eu dilyn yn arafu'r llinell yn union lle mae'r gerdd angen iddi arafu.” That says the ornament costs something and buys something, which is an argument about craft rather than a label.
If you cannot classify it, say what you can see
Under examination conditions you may not settle the type, and guessing is worse than not naming it. “Mae'r llinell wedi'i gweithio'n drwm — mae'r un cytseiniaid yn dychwelyd ar draws y llinell — er nad ydw i'n siŵr pa fath yn union.” That is honest, it is accurate about what is observable, and it still supports a claim about the line. A wrongly named type, in a subject where the reader can check, is worse than an honest description.

Result: Consonant skeleton in order, digraphs as single units, h ignored; find the division and compare the sequences; test lusg last, since it is an ear pattern. Then say what the ornament costs and buys, rather than naming a type. If you cannot classify the line, describe what is observable and say so — a wrongly named type is checkable and worse than an honest description.

Typical mistakes

Naming a type of cynghanedd without having tested the line, and naming the wrong one.
Writing about cynghanedd groes in a poem attributed to the sixth century.
Confusing the two senses of awdl.
Treating ornament as decoration rather than as a constraint the poet is working inside.

Active revision

Take twenty lines from one prescribed cywydd and write out the consonant skeleton of each, then classify. You will get some wrong, and the ones you get wrong are the ones worth studying, because they are usually the lines where a consonant is doing something you did not expect — a cluster treated as one unit, a word chosen for its shape. Twenty lines takes about forty minutes and it will teach you more about the craft than any amount of reading about it.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: WJEC GCE AS/A level Welsh (First Language) specification — Unit 5 Section B, writing techniques and critical terminology (WJEC CBAC)

Exam technique: the two-poem question#

AdvancedUnit 5 Section B — candidates respond to two of the prescribed poems: (i) the background of the poet and the prescribed poem quoted on the paper; (ii) the writing techniques of an extract from another prescribed poemUnit 5 — two questions in the paper; AO2 13.3% and AO3 6.7% of the A level; dictionaries prohibited; synoptic assessment

The mechanics of the question are the technique. One poem is printed and you write about its background; a different prescribed poem supplies an extract whose techniques you discuss. That means the paper is asking you to move between two poems in one answer, and the first decision — which second poem to take — is yours. Make it deliberately. The best choice is not the poem you know best; it is the poem that produces the most productive relationship with the printed one, because although the question does not demand a comparison, an answer whose two halves illuminate each other reads far better than one whose halves are unrelated.

The pairings available across the six prescribed poems are worth mapping in advance. Same tradition, different poet: an Aneirin item against a Taliesin item, where the shared tradition makes the differences visible. Same poet, different mode: two of Dafydd's cywyddau, where the constraint is identical and the tone is not. Across the centuries: an Hengerdd item against a cywydd, where the change in the tradition is itself the subject. Each of those three produces a different kind of answer, and knowing which pairing you would choose for each possible printed poem is about twenty minutes of planning that will save ten in the examination.

Because Unit 5 carries 6.7% of AO3 and both answers on the paper are written in Welsh under time pressure with no dictionary, the accuracy work matters as much here as anywhere. There is a particular risk in this section: writing about medieval poetry tempts candidates into a raised register, and a raised register attempted under pressure is where mutations and relative particles go wrong. The safe policy is to write Section B in the same Cymraeg safonol you would use anywhere else, reserving literary forms for the moments where they are doing something. Literary Welsh belongs in the quotations, which are the poets' own.

Timing across the paper is the last thing to settle. Two questions, one on each section, and each of them has two parts. That is four pieces of writing in the paper, and the commonest failure is a long part (i) on Section A that leaves Section B's part (ii) with ten minutes. Decide your division before the examination and write the times on the paper at the start. Since part (ii) of Section B requires close analysis of a printed extract — the most time-consuming operation in the paper — it should not be the thing you reach last with whatever is left.

Worked example

One printed poem, three possible second poems, and choosing between them

A cywydd is printed for part (i). Work through the three candidates for part (ii) and decide, then write the sentence that joins the halves.

Option one — another cywydd by the same poet
The safe choice. The formal vocabulary you established in part (i) transfers directly, and the constraint is identical, so the analysis can be about what varies within it. The risk is that the answer becomes narrow: two poems by one poet in one form, and nothing in the answer requires the whole breadth of the section. Choose it when your technique file on the second cywydd is genuinely strong.
Option two — a Taliesin poem
The productive choice. The two poems belong to different traditions separated by centuries, so part (ii)'s technical analysis has something to be measured against: what the older poem does with sound and repetition, and what the strict-metre system made obligatory later. It also lets you use the periodisation you set out in part (i). The risk is anachronism — do not import cynghanedd's named types backwards.
Option three — an awdl from the Gododdin
The most ambitious. The Gododdin's ornament and its monorhyme structure make the strongest possible contrast with a cywydd, and handling both accurately demonstrates real command of the section. It is also the option where an error is most likely, because the vocabulary that applies to one does not apply to the other. Choose it only if your Hengerdd technique file is solid.
The joining sentence
Whichever you choose, one sentence should connect the halves: “Ac o roi'r ddwy gerdd wrth ei gilydd, yr hyn sy'n dod i'r golwg ydy pa mor wahanol yw'r berthynas rhwng sain ac ystyr yn y ddau draddodiad.” That sentence costs fifteen seconds and it turns two answers into one essay. Note y berthynas: perthynas is feminine, so it softens after the article.
The decision rule
Choose the second poem whose technique file you could write out from memory, and among those, the one furthest from the printed poem in tradition. Distance produces contrast and contrast produces claims; familiarity produces fluency and fluency alone does not score. But an ambitious pairing you cannot support accurately is worse than a safe one you can, and the recording of that judgement is your own honest assessment of your files.

Result: Three options, increasing in ambition and risk: another cywydd (safe but narrow), a Taliesin poem (productive, watch for anachronism), a Gododdin awdl (strongest contrast, highest error risk). Choose the one furthest in tradition from the printed poem AMONG those whose technique file you could write from memory — then join the halves with one sentence.

Typical mistakes

Choosing the second poem by familiarity rather than by what it makes visible about the printed one.
Attempting literary Welsh under pressure and losing accuracy that would have been safe in the standard register.
Writing a long Section A part (i) and arriving at Section B part (ii) with no time for close analysis.
Treating the two halves of the Section B answer as unrelated, when a relationship costs one sentence.

Active revision

Draw up the pairing map: six printed poems down the side, and for each one the second poem you would choose and the single sentence that connects them. Six rows. Then time yourself writing a full Section B answer for two of them. The map removes the decision from the examination, and the timing tells you whether your part (ii) is realistic at the length you have been practising it.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: WJEC GCE AS/A level Welsh (First Language) specification — Unit 5 Section B question structure and unit weightings (WJEC CBAC)

References & sources

Sources

WJEC CBAC

WJEC GCE AS/A level Welsh (First Language) specification — A2 Unit 5 Section B, Yr Hengerdd a'r Cywyddau

Yr Hengerdd a'r Cywyddau (Early and Medieval Poetry)

Key points

Building the two files so that neither leaks into the other

Key points

Answering part (i) on an Hengerdd poem

Key points

Answering part (ii) on a cywydd extract

Key points

Reading a line as a consonant skeleton, and what to do with the result

Key points

One printed poem, three possible second poems, and choosing between them

Sources

Yr Hengerdd a'r Cywyddau (Early and Medieval Poetry)

Key points

Building the two files so that neither leaks into the other

Key points

Answering part (i) on an Hengerdd poem

Key points

Answering part (ii) on a cywydd extract

Key points

Reading a line as a consonant skeleton, and what to do with the result

Key points

One printed poem, three possible second poems, and choosing between them

Sources