In medieval Gaelic and British culture a bard was a professional poet, employed by a patron, such as a monarch or nobleman, to commemorate the patron's ancestors and to praise the patron's own activities.
Originally a specific class of poet, contrasting with another class known as fili in Ireland and Highland Scotland, the term "bard", with the decline of living bardic tradition in the modern period, acquired generic meanings of an epic author/singer/narrator, comparable with the terms in other cultures (minstrel, skald, scop, rhapsode, udgatar, griot, ashik) or any poets, especially famous ones. For example, William Shakespeare is known as The Immortal Bard.
Read more about Bard: Etymology and Origin, Irish Bards, History of Irish Bards, Scottish Bards, Welsh Bards, Revival
Famous quotes containing the word bard:
“There is one story and one story only
That will prove worth your telling,
Whether as learned bard or gifted child;”
—Robert Graves (1895–1985)
“You feel you could pucker up and blow away the miles between 49 Bard Road [Brixton] and that apartment in New York where I could be tomorrow morning, if the apartment still existed, if Peregrine still existed, if the past weren’t deeper than the sea, more difficult to cross.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)
“Well! If the Bard was weather-wise, who made
The grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence,”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)