English-Language Poetry from Wales 1789-1806

In the period following the French revolution in 1789, Welsh poets continually reflected on the extraordinary new era in which they lived through their writing. Effortlessly ranging from Wales’s deep and distant history to accounts of the most topical and urgent current affairs, their poems on war, Welshness, druids, parted lovers and sublime landscapes encompass the beautiful, the brutal and the mysterious. Facing a future that often seemed agonisingly uncertain, poets in Wales used their verses to voice their thoughts and feelings about events that had rocked the whole of Europe, and whose effects continued to be felt long after 1789. This new selection of poetry from Wales sets recently-discovered manuscript texts alongside little-known early printed poems, offering a full and accessible introduction to Welsh poetry in English in the period 1780-1820.