Mary-Ann Constantine

WELSH LITERARY HISTORY AND THE MAKING OF ‘THE MYVYRIAN ARCHAIOLOGY OF WALES’

This chapter explores a formative moment in the history of Welsh literature and philology: the publication, between 1801 and 1807, of three volumes of medieval Welsh-language texts known as the Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales. Now generally discredited as the product of misguided Romantic-era enthusiasm, the Myvyrian was a respected and respectable companion for writers and scholars in Wales and beyond during most of the nineteenth century, and it helped shape a vision of ‘Welshness’ still recognisable today. It repays closer scrutiny, both as a work of scholarship and for its contribution to incipient Welsh nationalism. Moreover, the story of its compilation by three very different men – a compelling mixture of endeavour, generosity and deviousness – is as much a part of Welsh literary history as the publication itself.

“Impertinent structures”: a Breton's adventures in neo-Gothic Wales

This essay examines a series of unpublished letters written by a young Breton viscount, Hersart de La Villemarqué, during a tour of south Wales and south-west England in the autumn and winter of 1838–1839. La Villemarqué was part of a delegation invited by the Abergavenny Cymreigyddion Society, and his visit brought him into close contact with some of the leading lights of the Welsh cultural revival. Though frequently naïve and with a tendency to romanticise, La Villemarqués detailed and intimate descriptions of the homes and characters of Lady Llanover, Lady Charlotte Guest and the Vivians of Swansea shed a new and fascinating light on the aspirations of this circle. This is, it is argued, an unusual and atypical Welsh “tour”, focused on interiors rather than landscapes, and drawn not so much to antiquities and ruins as to medievalist, neo-Gothic versions of the Welsh past.

‘Viewing Most Things Thro’ False Mediums’: Iolo Morganwg (1747–1826) and English Perceptions of Wales

In an astute remark, the Welsh bard and stonecutter Edward Williams, better known as Iolo Morganwg, noted how ‘false mediums’ distorted most English discussions of Wales: The great Error of English writers when they write anything about Wales arises from their viewing most things thro’ false mediums. Thus the Welsh language is viewed in a light similar to that wherein they would view the Cherokee Language. The Welsh MSS in the same light in which the MSS of Ossian are now justly view’d, the present state of society in Wales through the medium of antiquated authors, for instance Giraldus, who wrote what was most probably true in his own days. One author views things thro’ what a preceding author has said. A Welsh custom is viewed thro the medium of an English usage which is something similar or conceived to be so, and a great number of things are viewed thro the medium of long continued prejudices.

Napoleon in Swansea: Reflections of the Hundred Days in the Welsh Newspaper Seren Gomer

Seren Gomer (Star of Gomer) was the first Welsh-language weekly newspaper. It was launched in Swansea by the Baptist minister Joseph Harris and catered to a lively community of readers across Wales. Its 86 issues ran from January 1814 to August 1815 and offered a mix of local, national, and international news interspersed with advertisements, poetry, and letters. From March 1815 onward, Napoleon haunts its pages; the final issue coincides with his recapture after Waterloo. This essay examines Bonaparte’s appearances in the newspaper in a surprising variety of contexts, and situates these accounts in the wider field of Welsh literatur, including poetry, pamphlets, biography, and travel narrative.