'Wee wenhonourGhosetrayn': The spectres of Modern Welsh Writing in English

“Wee wenhonourGhosetrayn”：现代威尔士英语写作的幽灵

• 批准号: 2440751
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: CARDIFF UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2020 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2440751
• 关键词: Wee; wenhonourGhosetrayn; spectres; Modern; Welsh

Welsh anglophone writers are living with ghosts. The 'ghosetrayn' at the fair in Stephen Knight's 'The Heart of Saturday Night' traverses the shared common ('cawmun') of the community: its colloquial phonetic spelling lingers between the English and Welsh language, the activity of the young narrator vacillates between childish innocence and grim adult experience. Characterised variously as 'Post-Industrial', 'Post-Communal', 'Post-Pastoral' and 'Post-National', anglophone Welsh writing likewise hovers in an intangible cultural space. Modern Welsh writing in English thus takes on the guise of a literature haunted by the spectres of its past socioeconomic and cultural condition while also anticipating future identities and formations. My research project examines the spectral qualities of Welsh literature written in English from 1990-present investigating the questions of lack, loss and instability such writing raises, and how anglophone Welsh literature challenges, extends and refutes existing conceptions of spectral theory. Simultaneously, spectral theory facilitates the theorisation of such literature in terms of its capacity to interrogate the socioeconomic and socio-political status of contemporary Wales. My project has a four-chapter structure, organising works by the broad categories described above. Crucially, the works of the authors I will study are located in the tumultuous period which marked the closure of Welsh heavy industry, the introduction and aftermath of devolution and the reintroduction of the Welsh language to Wales as part of a largescale Welsh Government project: a period which is as much about loss and decline as it is about birth and formation. Each chapter has one author who is the chapter's main focus, but will identify other anglophone Welsh writers whose work testifies to new trends emerging in the field. Like the industrial society to which it responded, industrial fiction has been one of the dominant modes of Welsh writing in the twentieth century. The tropes of trauma, disability and deracination encountered in the contemporary works of Christopher Meredith describe a post-industrial moment haunted by the spectres of a departed industrial world and the society sustained by it. Following on, my second chapter investigates what I term 'Post-Communal' literature which encompasses both the turbulent 'coming-of-age' novels of Joe Dunthorne. I examine the ways in which the Welsh identity is becoming increasingly fragmented and individualist, rather than maintaining the community-oriented feeling of anglophone Welsh literatures past. The third chapter of the project theorises traumatic and violent 'Post-Pastoral' works of Niall Griffiths, investigating not just the position of rural areas of Wales within an increasingly urbanised conception of national identity, but the ways in which the decline of the Welsh rural economy threatens a particular Welsh way of life dependent on that economy. My fourth chapter deals with the 'Post-National'; I intend to engage with plays by Peter Gill in order to explore the ways in which works by Welsh writers set outside of Wales are haunted by the spectres of Welsh culture. I ask if such writing can be conceived of as 'non-Welsh writing in English': does the spectre of a popular stereotypical Welsh identity, rooted in the industrial, the communal, the pastoral and the national, haunt these works? Ultimately, this thesis argues contemporary Welsh writing in English is haunted by loss: of industry, the community, the pastoral landscape, and the nation as distinct from English ways of life.

以英语为母语的威尔士作家生活在幽灵之中。史蒂芬·奈特（Stephen Knight）的《周六夜之心》（The Heart of Saturday Night）中集市上的“鬼魂”（ghosetrayn）贯穿了社区的共同特征（“cawmun”）：它的口语语音拼写徘徊在英语和威尔士语之间，年轻叙述者的活动在幼稚的天真和严峻的成人经历之间摇摆不定。以英语为母语的威尔士写作同样徘徊在一个无形的文化空间中，被称为“后工业”、“后公共”、“后田园”和“后民族”。因此，现代威尔士英语写作呈现出一种被过去社会经济和文化状况的幽灵所困扰的文学形象，同时也期待着未来的身份和形态。我的研究项目检查了从1990年至今用英语写的威尔士文学的光谱质量，调查缺乏，损失和不稳定的问题，这样的写作提出，以及英语威尔士文学如何挑战，扩展和反驳光谱理论的现有概念。同时，光谱理论促进了这种文学的理论化，就其能力来询问当代威尔士的社会经济和社会政治地位。我的项目有一个四章的结构，根据上面描述的大类来组织工作。至关重要的是，我将研究的作者的作品位于动荡时期，这标志着威尔士重工业的关闭，权力下放的引入和后果，以及威尔士语言作为大规模威尔士政府项目的一部分重新引入威尔士：一个关于损失和衰落的时期，因为它是关于诞生和形成的。每一章都有一位作者，他是本章的主要焦点，但将确定其他讲英语的威尔士作家，他们的作品证明了该领域正在出现的新趋势。就像它所回应的工业社会一样，工业小说一直是20世纪威尔士写作的主要模式之一。在克里斯托弗·梅雷迪思的当代作品中，创伤、残疾和堕落的比喻描述了一个后工业时代，这个时代被一个逝去的工业世界和由它支撑的社会的幽灵所困扰。接下来，我的第二章研究了我所说的“后公共”文学，包括乔·邓索恩动荡的“成年”小说。我研究威尔士身份变得越来越碎片化和个人主义的方式，而不是保持过去英语威尔士文学的社区导向的感觉。该项目的第三章将Niall Griffiths的创伤性和暴力的“后田园”作品理论化，不仅调查了威尔士农村地区在日益城市化的国家身份概念中的地位，而且还调查了威尔士农村经济的衰落对依赖于该经济的特定威尔士生活方式的威胁。我的第四章讨论的是“后国家”；我打算研究彼得·吉尔的戏剧，以探索威尔士作家的作品是如何被威尔士文化的幽灵所困扰的。我问这样的作品是否可以被理解为“英语中的非威尔士作品”：根植于工业，社区，田园和国家的流行刻板威尔士身份的幽灵是否萦绕在这些作品中？最后，这篇论文认为，当代威尔士英语写作受到工业、社区、田园景观和民族与英语生活方式截然不同的损失的困扰。