Guide to Welsh Literature: Welsh Writing in English: Twentieth Century Welsh Writing in English Vol 7 (Guide to Welsh Literature) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0708316794 ISBN 13: 9780708316795

Publisher: University of Wales Press, 2003

Synopsis

Although it is often thought that English language writing from Wales dates only from the twentieth century, it has an older tradition than many other national literatures. Welsh Writing in English is the first authoritative critical survey of this body of writing in its entirety, from the Middle Ages to the present day. The work of leading scholars, critics and writers in the field, it explores the many different and complex ways in which Wales has been written into existence, considering in detail writers from Henry Vaughan and John Dyer to Gillian Clarke and Christopher Meredith. Opening with a broad survey of the historical background that helped give the Anglophone literature of Wales its distinctive characteristics, Welsh Writing in English offers new readings of familiar, major writers (Dylan Thomas, R. S. Thomas, Raymond Williams, Emyr Humphreys), setting them in the context of their times and their contemporaries. It also discusses the industrial fictions of Wales, as well as reconsidering significant neglected figures, from Rhys Davies, Lynette Roberts and Geraint Goodwin to Brenda Chamberlain and John Ormond. Welsh Writing in English is a pioneering re-evaluation of a literature that appears to many to begin with Dylan Thomas and end with How Green Was My Valley. It demonstrates that Welsh identity is experienced as constantly changing, depending on how - and from where - it is viewed, and that Wales has produced a highly-varied and internationally important literature in English.

About this title

About the Author

M. Wynn Thomas is Emyr Humphreys Professor of English at Swansea University. A Fellow of the British Academy, he has published twenty books on American poetry and on the two literatures of Wales.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Wales Press
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0708316794
• ISBN 13: 9780708316795
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304
• Editor: M.Wynn Thomas