Writing Wales, from the Renaissance to Romanticism

247 Pages·2012·1.661 MB·English

by  Stewart Mottram, Sarah Prescott

Writing Wales,
from the Renaissance
to Romanticism
Edited by
Stewart Mottram
and Sarah Prescott
Writing Wales, from the renaissance
to romanticism
Writing Wales explores representations of Wales in english and Welsh literatures
written across a broad sweep of history, from the union of Wales with england in
1536 to the beginnings of its industrialization at the turn of the nineteenth century.
the collection offers a timely contribution to the current devolutionary energies
that are transforming the study of British literatures today, and it builds on recent
work on Wales in renaissance, eighteenth-century and romantic literary studies.
What is unique about Writing Wales is that it cuts across these period divisions
to enable readers for the first time to chart the development of literary treatments
of Wales across three of the most tumultuous centuries in the history of British
state-formation. Writing Wales explores how these period divisions have helped
shape scholarly treatments of Wales, and it asks if we should continue to reinforce
such period divisions, or else reconfigure our approach to Wales’s literary past.
The essays collected here reflect the full 300-year time span of the volume
and explore writers canonical and non-canonical alike: george Peele, michael
Drayton, henry Vaughan, Katherine Philips, and John Dyer here feature alongside
other lesser-known authors. the collection showcases the wide variety of literary
representations of Wales, and it explores relationships between the perception of
Wales in literature and the realities of its role on the British political stage.
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Writing Wales,
from the renaissance
to romanticism

Edited by

steWart mottram
University of Hull, UK
and
sarah Prescott
Aberystwyth University, UK
© Stewart Mottram and Sarah Prescott and the contributors 2012
all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
stewart mottram and sarah Prescott have asserted their right under the copyright, Designs
and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work.
Published by
ashgate Publishing limited ashgate Publishing company
Wey Court East Suite 420
Union Road 101 Cherry Street
farnham Burlington
Surrey, GU9 7PT VT 05401-4405
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ashgate Website: http://www.ashgate.com
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
mottram, stewart James.
Writing Wales, from the renaissance to romanticism.
1. Wales – in literature. 2. national characteristics, Welsh, in literature. 3. english
literature – Early modern, 1500–1700 – History and criticism. 4. English literature –
18th century – History and criticism. 5. Welsh literature – Early modern, 1500–1700
– history and criticism. 6. Welsh literature – 18th century – history and criticism.
i. title ii. Prescott, sarah, 1968–
820.9’358429–dc23

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Writing Wales, from the renaissance to romanticism / edited by stewart mottram and
sarah Prescott.
p. cm.
includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Wales—in literature. 2. english literature—history and criticism. 3. Welsh literature—
history and criticism. 4. national characteristics, Welsh, in literature. i. mottram, stewart
James. ii. Prescott, sarah, 1968–
PR149.W3W75 2012
820.9’358429—dc23
2012011245
ISBN 9781409445098 (hbk)
ISBN 9781409445104 (ebk – PDF)
ISBN 9781409471073 (ebk – ePUB)
V
contents
List of Figures vii
Notes on Contributors ix
Acknowledgements xiii
introduction 1
Stewart Mottram and Sarah Prescott
Part 1 Renaissance to Seventeenth Century
1 early modern Welsh nationalism and the British history 21
Grace Jones
2 Writing on Borderlines: anglo-Welsh relations in
thomas churchyard’s The Worthines of Wales 39
Liz Oakley-Brown
3 Green Tights and Swordfights: Edward I and the
making of memories 59
Alex May
4 ‘Prince of Wales by cambria’s full consent’?:
the Princedom of Wales and the early modern stage 75
Marisa R. Cull
5 William Browne and the Writing of early stuart Wales 91
Stewart Mottram
Part 2 Seventeenth Century to Romanticism
6 morgan llwyd and the foundations of the
‘nonconformist nation’ 111
M. Wynn Thomas
7 ‘if there be helicon in Wales it is’: Writing Wales
in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Poetry 131
Sarah Prescott
vi Writing Wales, from the Renaissance to Romanticism
8 ‘No rebellious jarring noise’: Expressions of Loyalty
to the British State in Eighteenth-Century Welsh Writing 149
Bethan Jenkins
9 ‘Walking Conundrums’: Masquerades, Riddles, and
National Identity in Late Eighteenth-Century Wales 167
Mary Chadwick
10 Haunted by History: Welsh Gothic 1780–1800 183
Jane Aaron
Bibliography 201
Index 219
list of figures
5.1 frontispiece to Poly-Olbion, engraved by William hole;
from michael Drayton, A chorographicall description …
of this renowned isle of Great Britain (london, 1622).
© the British library Board, shelfmark 838.m.1. 94
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notes on contributors
Jane Aaron is Professor of english at the University of glamorgan. she is the
author of A Double Singleness: Gender and the Writings of Charles and Mary Lamb
(clarendon Press, 1991), Pur fel y Dur: Y Gymraes yn Llên y Bedwaredd Ganrif
ar Bymtheg (University of Wales Press, 1998), and Nineteenth-Century Women’s
Writing in Wales: Nation, Gender and Identity (University of Wales Press, 2007),
which won the roland mathias Prize in 2009. for the honno classics series, which
she edits, she co-edited The Very Salt of Life: Welsh Women’s Political Writings
from Chartism to Suffrage (2007), and edited the anthology A View across the
Valley: Short Stories by Women from Wales 1850–1950 (1999). she is also the
co-editor of Out of the Margins: Women’s Studies in the Nineties (falmer Press,
1991), Our Sisters’ Land: The Changing Identities of Women in Wales (University
of Wales Press, 1994), Postcolonial Wales (University of Wales Press, 2005), and
Gendering Border Studies (University of Wales Press, 2009).
Mary Chadwick is completing an ahrc-funded PhD in the Department of
english and creative Writing at aberystwyth University. her thesis is entitled:
‘the literary Pursuits of a Denbighshire community, 1780–1820’ and investigates
the ways in which members of a north Welsh gentry community express ideas of
national identity in poems, riddles, and letters preserved in the archive of the
Griffiths of Garn, held by the National Library of Wales. Her research interests
include the consumption of popular culture in Wales, postcolonial theory and its
applicability to Wales and Welsh history, and the ways in which the socializing
influences to which Welsh men and women were subject shaped their attitudes
towards the country of their birth.
Marisa R. Cull joined the English faculty at Randolph-Macon College in
ashland, Virginia, in september 2008 after completing her PhD at ohio state
University. She is currently finishing a monograph titled Shakespeare’s Princes of
Wales: English Identity and the Welsh Connection. a portion of this work appeared
in Shakespeare and Wales, edited by Willy maley and Philip schwyzer (ashgate,
2010). she has published essays in Comitatus and The Humanities Review. her
primary research projects are focused on the convergences of British history,
national identity, and the english stage.
Bethan Jenkins is a graduate of trinity college, oxford, and now works for
the History Faculty Library, Bodleian Libraries. She was awarded her DPhil on
British and Anglo-Welsh identity in the context of a growing hegemonic sense of
Britishness in the eighteenth century in 2010. She has presented papers on these
topics at various international conferences, including the annual British Society
for eighteenth-century studies conference, and conferences at the centre for
advanced Welsh and celtic studies (caWcs) at aberystwyth. she has held
the sir t.h. Parry-Williams scholarship at caWcs as a research assistant for