Bewnans Ke - Analysis and Significance

Analysis and Significance

Scholars have pointed out a number of similarities with Beunans Meriasek. The two are comparable in subject matter: they are the only known vernacular plays on saints' hagiographies to have been produced in Britain. The language in both works is similar and dates to the same era, leading to the conclusion that they originate around the same time and place. Both plays include the tyrannical king Teudar and his court at Goodern, who may be intended as a satire of King Henry VII in the wake of his crushing of the Cornish Rebellion of 1497. As such, it is thought that Bewnans Ke, like Beunans Meriasek, was written at Glasney College at the beginning of the 16th century. It is possible that the surviving manuscripts of the two plays were brought to Wales together.

The substantial length and distinct nature of the two sections may imply that the play was intended for performance over the course of two days, as was the case with Beunans Meriasek. Beunans Meriasek contains diagrams at the end of each section indicating the completion of a day's performance; these occur in places that would be missing in the Bewnans Ke manuscript. John T. Koch finds the first section to be more dramatic and effective, calling the second section "stolid", though he notes its importance to Arthurian studies. On top of Cornish, the text is peppered with lines and words in English, Latin, and Anglo-Norman French, particularly in the second section. The stage directions are mostly in Latin, but some are in Cornish and English, though the latter may have been added later.

The discovery of the play was the first addition to the corpus of historical Cornish literature since John Tregear's Homilies were found in 1949. It is also of vast importance to the study of the Cornish language, as it provides valuable evidence of the state of Cornish in the Tuduor era, the transitional period between Middle and Late Cornish. Many words in the play are not attested in any other sources. The Cornish stage directions, though relatively few, contain some of the oldest known Cornish prose.