- The Hunt for the Welsh Past in the Romantic Period
- In Wales, the movement of revival and myth making grew out
- of a crisis in Welsh life, when the very lifeblood of the nation
- seemed to be ebbing away… Wales in the eighteenth century
- did not have an unbroken or a fortunate historical tradition; it did
- not have a glorious or heroic recent past. Hence the rediscovery
- of the remote past, the Druids and the Celts and the others, had
- an astounding effect on the Welsh. Wales did not have a network
- of learnned or academic institutions to check and balance myths
- and inventions with criticism...
- It required a superhuman effort by a small number of patriots to
- force their fellow-countrymen to appreciate their heritagc, to
- value what was their own. They felt that the only way to bring this
- about was to ransack the past and transform it with imagination,
- to create anew Welshness which would instruct, entertain,
- amuse and educate the people. The mythical and romantic
- Wales which they created allowed the Welsh to lose their
- immediate past, and to gain a version of it in the arts and
- literature; they could, as it were, have their cake and eat it...
- As soon as the romantics fell from their steeds, their place
- was taken by fresh myth-makers and creators of traditions,
- those of radical and non-conformist Wales. The huntsmen
- have changed, but the hunt went on.
The above extracts were taken from:
Morgan, P., 'The Hunt for the Welsh Past in the Romantic Period', in Hobsbawm, E., Ranger, T. (Eds.) (1983), The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 99-100.
Questions (by Adrian Worsfold)
- Which of the following statements best sums up this article?
- History is made up
- Hunting people have cake and eat cake
- Welsh patriots responded to a crisis in Welsh identity by creating traditions
- A romantic history allows people to lose their recent history
- There is an OCR (scanning) error in:
- line 5
- line 8
- line 12
- line 15
- There is a spelling error in:
- line 4
- line 9
- line 13
- line 14
- These extracts illustrate:
- Tabloid press writing
- Academic writing
- Colour supplement writing
- Report writing
- These extracts primarily seek to:
- Force Welsh people to a point of view
- Argue a case
- Reject a given viewpoint
- Advertise for the Welsh Romantic movement
- One reason the Welsh accepted romantic myth as valid history was because:
- The patriots were superhuman
- There were few critical learning institutions
- Wales is an heroic place shown by its history
- The Welsh like to be entertained and amused
- The article claims that Welsh identity through non-conformist religion:
- Is historically valid
- Is another constructed myth
- Demonstrates that Wales is a land of song and prayer
- Was a feature of the romantic period
- In line 3 "lifeblood" means:
- A liquid substance that keeps people alive
- Identity and essence
- A myth
- The ability to live
- In Lines 1 and 23 "the hunt" means:
- Chasing and hoping to kill foxes
- Looking for ancient documents in Welsh towns and villages
- Chasing any usable myths in the romantic past, embellishing them and even making some up
- Looking for remains of Druids and famous Celts
- Which of these statements is true, according to the article:
- Wales did have an unbroken and fortunate historical tradition
- Wales did have a glorious and heroic recent past
- Wales did not have an unbroken and fortunate historical tradition but did have a glorious and heroic recent past
- Wales neither had an unbroken or a fortunate historical tradition nor did it have a glorious or heroic recent past
- The Romanticised period is:
- A time in the distant past
- The eighteenth century
- The non-conformist period
- The immediate past
- In line 22 the "huntsmen" are:
- People on their steeds (horseback)
- Mythmakers chasing myths
- Non-conformist ministers
- Druids and Celts
- In line 15 "anew" most accurately means:
- Create a new Welshness
- Create again a Welshness
- Create a limited Welshness
- Create a Welshness from false documents
- Rewrite the last paragraph in less colourful language.
Adrian Worsfold