Bard
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A bard is a poet and singer, in religious or feudal contexts. The word is a loan from Celtic bardos, ultimately from PIE *gwerh "to raise the voice; praise". It entered the English language twice, first in 1449 from Gaelic into Scottish English, denoting an itinerant musician, usually with a contemptuous connotation. A local Scottish ordnance of ca. 1500 orders that "All vagabundis, fulis, bardis, scudlaris, and siclike idill pepill, sall be brint on the cheek".
In medieval Welsh and Irish society, a bard (Irish bard, Welsh bardd) was a professional poet, employed to compose eulogies for his lord (see planxty). If the employer failed to pay the proper amount, the bard would then compose a satire. (c. f. fili, fáith). In other European societies, the same function was fulfilled by skalds, rhapsodes, minstrels, etc.
During Romanticism, the word was re-introduced in the sense of "lyric poet", idealized by writers such as Sir Walter Scott. The word was taken from Latin bardus, Greek bardos, in turn loans from the Gaulish language, describing a class of Celtic priest (c. f. druid, vates). From this romantic use came the epitheton "The Bard" applied to William Shakespeare or Robert Burns. In modern Wales the "Gorsedd of Bards" is a society whose honorary membership is those who have done great things for Wales.
In the 20th century, the word lost much of its original connotation of Celtic revivalism or Romanticism, and could refer to any professional poet or singer, sometimes in a mildly ironic tone. In the Soviet Union, singers that were outside the establishment were called bards from the 1960s.
See also
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