Wales and the French Revolution

1789年的法国大革命是欧洲浪漫主义时期的决定性事件。它不仅扰乱了社会秩序，而且扰乱了语言和思想本身：它的影响是深远和持久的。在过去的二十年里，这一领域的学术研究从根本上改变了我们对辛亥革命及其对英国和欧洲文化影响的理解。在文学方面，随着评论界的注意力从少数几位主要诗人转移到非正统的“边缘”，我们现在可以看到女作家、自学成才的作家、激进的小册子作者、宗教狂热分子和忠诚的宣传者的作品是如何塑造和被那个时代的语言和思想塑造的。然而，令人惊讶的差距依然存在。即使是最近关于英国人对革命的反应的研究，也对这些地区的反应知之甚少，而威尔士的情况尤其糟糕。原因很复杂，但很明显，在这一时期工作的许多研究人员根本没有意识到可用于比较研究的来源的种类。在1801年人口普查时，绝大多数生活在威尔士的人不会说英语：换句话说，18世纪的威尔士保留了明显不同的文化和语言特征。那么，欧洲的事件和英国对这些事件的反应是如何在威尔士社会的不同层面上为人所知和感受的呢？威尔士人的反应与苏格兰、爱尔兰或伦敦的反应有哪些不同？这个项目将通过一系列广泛的编辑文本来探讨这些问题，这些文本的选择反映了1790-1815年期间威尔士文学的多样性和丰富性的急剧增加。这些卷将主要按体裁(诗歌、布道、信件等)组织，每卷都将提供深入的批判性介绍，将材料置于其历史和文学背景中。威尔士内外专家的文学和历史散文集将进一步探讨这一主题，涉及广泛的体裁和主题(例如，美国的存在、翻译的作用、伦敦-威尔士网络)。该项目正在进行的工作将通过国际会议的方式向更广泛的学术界展示，并通过专门的网站向公众展示。研究小组将由一名在欧洲浪漫主义领域拥有十年经验的调查员领导；她最近领导了一个为期五年的项目，研究威尔士浪漫主义伪造者和激进分子Iolo Mganwg。她的合作调查员是一位著名的威尔士历史学家，在三十多年的时间里，他发表了大量关于这一时期的文章。一个强大的顾问小组将包括在威尔士历史和文学方面有专长的学者，以及来自威尔士以外的英国浪漫主义的主要作家。在项目接近尾声时，一名技术顾问将协助小组以网络形式介绍他们的工作成果，从民谣和小册子到个人信件和获奖诗歌、散文、期刊、布道和讽刺作品，我们项目涵盖的文本范围将使其成为对这一时期复杂性的激动人心的反映。我们期望从这项研究中得出的威尔士既不是纯粹的激进分子，也不是纯粹的忠诚者；既不完全是威尔士人，也不是完全的英国人。此外，这项工作的影响远远超出了英国对革命的反应的直接“四国”背景。我们的发现将为正在进行的国际研究提供更多亟需的材料，以了解在这段欧洲历史的非凡形成时期，区域、国家和国际身份建构的微妙相互作用。

The French Revolution of 1789 was the defining event of the Romantic period in Europe. It unsettled not only the ordering of society but language and thought itself: its effects were profound and long-lasting. Over the last twenty years, scholarship in this area has radically changed our understanding of the impact of the Revolution and its aftermath on British and European culture. In literature, as critical attention has shifted from a handful of major poets to the non-canonical 'edges', we can now see how the works of women writers, self-educated writers, radical pamphleteers, religious enthusiasts and loyalist propagandists both shaped and were shaped by the language and ideas of the period. Yet surprising gaps remain. Even recent studies of the 'British' reaction to the Revolution are under-informed about responses from the regions, and Wales is particularly poorly served. The reasons for this are complex, but it is clear that many researchers working in this period are simply unaware of the kinds of sources available for comparative study. At the time of the 1801 census the vast majority of people living in Wales spoke no English: eighteenth-century Wales, in other words, retained a markedly distinct cultural and linguistic identity. How, then, did the events in Europe and the British reaction to them come to be known and felt throughout the different levels of Welsh society? In what ways did Welsh responses differ from those in Scotland, Ireland or London? This project will explore these questions through a wide-ranging series of edited texts, chosen to reflect the dramatic increase in diversity and abundance of Welsh literature during the period 1790-1815. The volumes will be organized principally by genre (poetry, sermons, letters, and so on) and each volume will provide an in-depth critical introduction situating the material in its historical and literary context. An additional collection of essays, both literary and historical, by experts from inside and outside Wales will further explore the subject across a wide range of genres and themes (e.g. the presence of America, the role of translation, the London-Welsh networks). The on-going work of the project will be presented to the wider academic community by means of an international conference, and to the general public through a dedicated website.The research team will be led by an investigator with ten years' experience in the field of European Romanticism; she has recently headed a five-year project on the Welsh Romantic forger and radical, Iolo Morganwg. Her co-investigator is an eminent historian of Wales, who has, over three decades, published widely on the period. A strong advisory panel will include scholars with expertise in Welsh history and literature and leading writers on British Romanticism from outside Wales. Towards the end of the project a technical consultant will assist the team in presenting the results of their work in web form.From ballads and pamphlets to personal letters and prize-winning poems, essays, journals, sermons and satires, the range of texts covered by our project will make it a stimulating reflection of the complexity of the period. The Wales we expect to emerge from this study will be neither purely radical nor purely loyalist; neither exclusively Welsh nor yet wholly British. The implications of this work, moreover, go well beyond the immediate 'Four Nations' context of the British response to the Revolution. Our findings will provide further much-needed material for ongoing international research into the subtle interactions of regional, national and international constructions of identity during this extraordinarily formative period of European history.