
Curious Travellers: Writing The Welsh Tour, 1760-1820 Provides The First Extensive Literary Study Of British Tours Of Wales In The Romantic Period (c.1760-1820). It Examines Writers' Responses To Welsh Landscapes And Communities At A Time Of Drastic Economic, Environmental, And Political Change. Opening With An Overview Of Welsh Tours Up To The Early 1700s, Mary-ann Constantine Shows How The Intensely Intertextual Nature Of The Genre Imbued Particular Sites And Locations With Meaning. She Next Draws Upon A Range Of Manuscript And Published Sources To Trace A Circular Tour Of The Country, Unpicking Moments Of Cultural Entanglement And Revealing How Travel-writing Shaped Understanding Of Wales And Welshness Within The Wider British Polity. Wales Became A Popular Destination For Visitors Following The Publication Of Thomas Pennant's Tours In Wales In The Late 1770s. Hundreds Of Travel-accounts From The Period Are Extant, Yet Few (particularly Those By Women) Have Been Studied In Depth. Wales Proves, In These Narratives, As Much A Place Of Disturbance As A Picturesque Haven--a Potent Mixture Of Medieval Past And Industrial Present, Exposed Down Its West Coast To The Threat Of Invasion During The Napoleonic Wars. From Castles To Copper-mines, Constantine Explores The Full Potential Of Tour Writing As An Idiosyncratic Genre At The Interface Of Literature And History, Arguing For Its Vital Importance To Broader Cultural And Environmental Studies.
This study investigates how travel writing during the Romantic period constructed and mediated the cultural identity of Wales within the broader British political landscape. Mary-ann Constantine, a scholar specializing in the literature of the period, utilizes a vast archive of both published and manuscript travel accounts to analyze the intersection of environmental, economic, and political shifts. She argues that the genre of the Welsh tour was inherently intertextual, transforming physical landscapes into sites of complex historical and social meaning.
What You Will Find
Scope Limits
Scholars recognize this work as a significant contribution to the study of Romantic-era travel literature and Welsh cultural history. Readers frequently note the meticulous archival research and the author's ability to synthesize diverse manuscript sources into a coherent narrative framework.
Page Count:
0
Publication Date:
1900-01-01
Publisher:
Oxford University Press,
ISBN-10:
0191886645
ISBN-13:
9780191886645
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