Literatures of Wales MA/PgDip

Part One: The first part of the course comprises three modules which seek to provide students with an understanding of modern Welsh literary and cultural history, enable them to develop their understanding of key issues in modern Welsh literary scholarship and consider key issues across both literary traditions, from a cross community perspective. Introduction: ‘Who Speaks for Wales?’: In this introductory module, students will be asked to consider how issues of identity pertinent to Wales from 1840 to the present have been understood. Typically, students will study internal difference within Wales, Britishness, notions of Celtic identity, Wales as a postcolonial nation, parallels with other ‘dominated’ British nations, nationalist movements. Work by the following writers might be studied: Hywel Teifi Edwards, Saunders Lewis, Raymond Williams, Matthew Arnold, J.R. Jones, M. Wynn Thomas, Tony Conran, Dai Smith, Kirsti Bohata. Welsh Modernity: Students will be asked to consider the ways in which literature across both linguistic traditions registers the arrival of modernity, and the changes subsequently wrought. Themes might include industry, class, urbanisation, capitalism, rural culture, religion, linguistic change and exile. Writers to be studied might include Caradoc Evans, Lynette Roberts, Caradog Pritchard, Dylan Thomas, Kate Roberts, R.S. Thomas, Arthur Machen, Emyr Humphreys, Idris Davies. Gender and Wales: Students will study the relation between gender and the Welsh nation, and how gender roles have changed over the last century. Themes might include sexuality, masculinity and industry, gendered representations of the colonised space, the male body, women and representations of land. Writers to be studied might include: Elin ap Hywel, Jan Morris, John Sam Jones, Glyn Jones, Jane Aaron, Lewis Jones, Gwyneth Lewis, Rhys Davies, Amy Dillwyn, Menna Gallie. Part Two: Preparation of a 20,000 word Dissertation, written in English or Welsh, on any aspect of the literatures in which the student is interested a subject of your choice, researched and written under the individual supervision of a subject specialist.