Reconsidering a Modern Welsh Cultural Identity through Welsh Poetic Forms and Metre

Page 1

Reconsidering a Modern Welsh Cultural Identity through Welsh Poetic Forms and Metre Conference Paper: NAASWCH. 25.07.2018. Bangor University. Today I would like to discuss how a contemporary Welsh cultural identity could be reconsidered through Welsh poetic forms and metre and why this important to modern Wales. I want to begin by posing a question: what does it mean to be Welsh right now? The twentieth century has been turbulent for many individuals and ethnicities with official statistics reporting an increase in racially motivated crime. This has taken place since the start of the EU Referendum campaign in England and Wales in 2016, as documented on statistics through GOV.UK1. In a multicultural and diverse society, a Welsh individual is difficult to define through physical characteristics but many are being ostracized from their Welsh communities because of this prejudice. This has led to those individuals feeling isolated, displaced and disengaged with their Welsh cultural identity and heritage. A Welsh cultural identity is more than just a simple matter of being born in Wales. It is possible to live in Wales or be affect by Wales while living outside of its borders to claim a Welsh cultural identity. For example, Patagonia, Argentina and the settlers of the Mimosa in 1865. A combination of Spanish and Welsh, named Patagonian Welsh, is still spoken in parts of Argentina2 and Welsh traditions are still widely practised there. A Welsh identity could represent someone who has been born to Welsh parents; someone who was born in Wales to parents with cultural identities outside of Wales or parents do not identify as Welsh; a refugee recently settled in Wales; or, a British family who want to make Wales their home. I am not trying to distinguish what defines a Welsh cultural identity but to emphasise the diversity of a Welsh cultural identity in modern Wales. Yet, despite this diversity, there is currently a new generation of Welsh voices who are struggling to feel a sense of belonging to Wales. This is expressed in the following quote by Charlotte Williams in her novel, Sugar and Slate: “Poor old mixed-up Wales, somehow as mixed up as I was […] I love its contours and its contradictions. There is the north, ‘Welsh Wales’ they call it, and a very different south, connected only in name…The Welsh and the English, the Welsh-speaking and the Englishspeaking, the proper Welsh and the not so proper Welsh, the insiders and the outsiders, the 1

GOV.UK. 2017. Statistical News Release: Hate Crime, England and Wales, 2016-2017. [Online] Accessed 17.07.2018. Available: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/651851/hatecrime-1617-hosb1717snr.pdf. 2 BBC, I Wonder. Huws, E. 2014. Why do they speak Welsh in South America? [Online] Accessed 17.07.2018. Available: http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/z9kr9j6#zwjkwmn. 1


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.
Reconsidering a Modern Welsh Cultural Identity through Welsh Poetic Forms and Metre by Rhea Seren Phillips - Issuu