Pe bai’n rhaid dewis un llenor yn unig wrth drafod holl lenyddiaeth Gymraeg y bedwaredd ganrif ar bymtheg, mae Jerry Hunter yn dweud y byddai’n dewis Gwilym Hiraethog (1802-1883).

Ganed William Rees mewn teulu o amaethwyr cymharol dlawd ym mhlwyf Llansannan, sir Ddinbych. Ychydig iawn o addysg ffurfiol a gafodd, ond eto byddai’r dyn rhyfeddol hwn yn cyfrannu mewn llawer iawn o wahanol ffyrdd at fywyd llenyddol a deallusol Cymru. Aeth yn weinidog yng Nghapel Lôn Swan, Dinbych, gan ddilyn Robert Everett, ac yn debyg i’r gweinidog hwnnw a ymfudodd i’r UDA, roedd gwrthwynebu caethwasiaeth ymysg yr achosion radicalaidd a goleddid gan Gwilym Hiraethog. Symudodd i Lerpwl wedyn gan fynd yn un o hoelion wyth cymuned Gymraeg y ddinas honno. Roedd yn fardd amryddawn: cyfansoddodd nifer o emynau sy’n cael eu canu hyd heddiw (er mawr siom i Jerry Hunter, gwrthododd Richard Wyn Jones ganu un!), ysgrifennodd rai o gerddi caeth mwyaf poblogaidd ei gyfnod, ac arbrofodd gyda ffurf heriol honno, yr ‘arwrgerdd’.

Roedd hefyd yn un o arloeswyr y nofel Gymraeg. Fel sylfaenydd a golygydd Yr Amserau, aeth ymysg cynheiliaid pwysicaf y wasg gyfnodol Gymraeg yn y cyfnod hefyd, a chyhoeddodd lawer o ysgrifau yn y papur hwnnw a gyflwynai wleidyddiaeth Ewropeaidd radicalaidd i ddarllenwyr Cymraeg.

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Gwilym Hiraethog

If one had to choose only one writer while discussing all of the Welsh-language literature from the nineteenth century, Jerry Hunter says he’d choose Gwilym Hiraethog (1802-1883).

William Rees was born into a family of comparatively poor farmers in the partish of Llansannan, Denbighshire. He had very little formal education, yet this amazing man would contribute in very many different ways to the literary and intellectual life of Wales. He became minister of the Swan Lane Chapel in Denbigh, following Robert Everett, and, like that minister who emigrated to the USA, opposing slavery was one of the radical causes embraced by Gwilym Hiraethog. He then moved to Liverpool and became a mainstay of the Welsh community in that city. He was a multi-facted poet: he composed a number of hymns which are still sung today (to Jerry Hunter’s great disappointment, Richard Wyn Jones refused to sing one!), he wrote some of the most popular strict-metre poetry of his period, and he experimented with that challenging form, the epic. He was also one of the pioneers of the Welsh novel.

As founder and editor of Yr Amserau [‘The Times’], he was amongst the most important people supporting the Welsh-language periodical press in the period as well, and he published many pieces in that paper which presented radical European politics to Welsh readers.

Cyflwynwyd gan: Yr Athro Jerry Hunter a'r Athro Richard Wyn Jones

Cynhyrchwyd gan: Richard Martin ar gyfer Mimosa Cymru

Cerddoriaeth: 'Might Have Done' gan The Molenes

Darllen Pellach/Further Reading:

- Thomas Roberts a David Roberts, Cofiant y Parch. W. Rees, D.D. (Gwilym Hiraethog) (1893).

- E. G. Millward, Yr Arwrgedd Gymraeg: Ei Thwf a’i Thranc (1998).

- Jerry Hunter, I Ddeffro Ysbryd y Wlad: Robert Everett a’r Ymgyrch yn Erbyn Caethwasanaeth Americanaidd (2007).