Reviews
"This is a crucially important analysis that should blaze a trail for succeeding generations to discover paths not only through the wilderness of their world but also their own selves. As I did as I read. Matters became clear which had been little more that a mist of intuition."-Emyr Humphreys, "It requires an exceptional effort of patient scholarship and historical empathy to convey how profoundly the thoughts, words, habits and deeds of those who lived only a generation or so ago were shaped by religious influences--often never more so than when they sought to rebel against them. In this new history of the Welsh dissenting culture and its impact on major Anglo-Welsh writers, M. Wynn Thomas eloquently and convincingly demonstrates how crucial its influence was.", "It requires an exceptional effort of patient scholarship and historical empathy to convey how profoundly the thoughts, words, habits and deeds of those who lived only a generation or so ago were shaped by religious influences-often never more so than when they sought to rebel against them. In this new history of the Welsh dissenting culture and its impact on major Anglo-Welsh writers, M. Wynn Thomas eloquently and convincingly demonstrates how crucial its influence was.", "It requires an exceptional effort of patient scholarship and historical empathy to convey how profoundly the thoughts, words, habits and deeds of those who lived only a generation or so ago were shaped by religious influences-often never more so than when they sought to rebel against them. In this new history of the Welsh dissenting culture and its impact on major Anglo-Welsh writers, M. Wynn Thomas eloquently and convincingly demonstrates how crucial its influence was."-Lawrence Buell, Harvard University, This is a crucially important analysis that should blaze a trail for succeeding generations to discover paths not only through the wilderness of their world but also their own selves. As I did as I read. Matters became clear which had been little more that a mist of intuition., From village to city, the chapels loom large everywhere in the Welsh landscape. But what do they tell us about our past? This book introduces us in simple terms to chapel culture, and shows us how heavily it has influenced the modern world of Wales. In particular, it demonstrates how, from the nineteenth century onwards, the obsession of Welsh writers with the chapels came to shape their novels, plays and poems; and how their attitude towards them changed from sympathy to hostility and outright rivalry. In the introduction, the author reflects on why no sustained attempt has hitherto been made to investigate one of the formative cultural influences on modern Anglo-Welsh literature, the Nonconformist inheritance. The importance of addressing this strange and significant cultural deficit is then explained, and a preliminary attempt made to capture something of the spirit of Welsh Nonconformity. The succeeding chapters address and seek to answer such questions as: What exactly did the Welsh chapels believe and do? Why have the English-language writers of Wales, from Caradoc Evans and Dylan Thomas to R. S. Thomas and the authors of today, been so fascinated by them? How accurate are the impressions weve been given of chapel life and chapel people in the English-language poetry and fiction of Wales? The answers offered may alter our views both of the Welsh Nonconformist past and of Welsh writing in English. One of the ideas advanced is that many of Waless most important writers went to war with the preachers in their texts, and that their work is therefore the site of cultural struggle. Theirs was a war in words waged to determine who would have the last word on modern Welsh experience. This is a crucially important analysis that should blaze a trail for succeeding generations to discover paths not only through the wilderness of their world but also their own selves. As I did as I read. Matters became clear which had been little more than a mist of intuition.Emyr Humphreys Today it requires an exceptional effort of patient scholarship and historical empathy to convey how profoundly the thoughts, words, habits, and deeds of those who lived only a generation or so ago were shaped by religious influencesoften never more so than when they sought to rebel against them. In this new history of the Welsh dissenting culture and its impact on major Anglo-Welsh writers, Professor Thomas eloquently and convincingly demonstrates how crucial its influence was. Anyone seriously interested in what the "Protestant imagination" was and for many actually still is will find great value in his insights, whose horizon extends across the Atlantic as well as through the centuries of Welsh history and literature from the Reformation to the mid-twentieth century.Lawrence Buell, Harvard University, "It requires an exceptional effort of patient scholarship and historical empathy to convey how profoundly the thoughts, words, habits and deeds of those who lived only a generation or so ago were shaped by religious influences-often never more so than when they sought to rebel against them. In this new history of the Welsh dissenting culture and its impact on major Anglo-Welsh writers, M. Wynn Thomas eloquently and convincingly demonstrates how crucial its influence was."-Lawrence Buell, Harvard University, It requires an exceptional effort of patient scholarship and historical empathy to convey how profoundly the thoughts, words, habits and deeds of those who lived only a generation or so ago were shaped by religious influences--often never more so than when they sought to rebel against them. In this new history of the Welsh dissenting culture and its impact on major Anglo-Welsh writers, M. Wynn Thomas eloquently and convincingly demonstrates how crucial its influence was.
