English Romanticism and the Celtic World [Paperback]

This book explores British Romantic writers' responses to the national and cultural identities of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.This book explores the way in which British Romantic writers responded to the national and cultural identities of the four nations England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The essays collected here interrogate the cultural centres as well as the peripheries of Romanticism, and the interactions between these.This book explores the way in which British Romantic writers responded to the national and cultural identities of the four nations England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The essays collected here interrogate the cultural centres as well as the peripheries of Romanticism, and the interactions between these.This study examines the interface between some of the most authoritative Romantic writers and Celticism , an emergent strand of cultural ethnicity during the eighteenth century. The collected essays examine engagement with Celtic culture by writers such as Blake, Wordsworth, Scott, Byron and Shelley, as well as engagement with the Romantic sensibility by those from within the Celtic nations of Britain. The collection, thus defines the differences between Celtic and British in the Romantic period.Introduction: romancing the Celt Gerard Carruthers and Alan Rawes; 2. 'And the Celt Knew the Indian': Sir William Jones, the Celtic Revival and the Oriental Renaissance Michael Franklin; 3. 'Our Names may be Heard in Song. But what avails it when our strength has ceased?': the critical response to Ossian's Romantic bequest Dafydd R. Moore; 4. Blake and Gwendolen: territory, periphery and the proper name David Punter; 5. The Welsh American Dream: Iolo Morganwg, Robert Southey and the Madoc Legend Caroline Franklin; 6. Wordsworth, north Wales, and the Celtic landscape J. R. Watson; 7. 'My Mother's Gordons': the force of 'Celtic memories' in Byron's thought Bernard Beatty; 8. 'The Revolt of Erin': Ireland and Islam in Shelley's orientlC