Search results for ""University of Wales Press""

Explores the state of French fiction through an examination of the work of five major French writers, Annie Ernaux, Pascal Quignard, Marie Darrieussecq, Jean Echenoz and Patrick Modiano. This book deals with some of the writers on British and American university French courses.

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Covers both the royal families that existed in pre-Conquest Wales and the predominantly English royal families that have ruled over Wales since medieval times. This book examines the changing relationships between the rulers and the ruled in Wales, over a period from the early Middle Ages.

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This book uses, principally but not only, a case study of the Denbighshire town of Ruthin to discuss both the significance of Englishness versus Welshness and of gender distinctions in the network of small Anglo-Welsh urban centres which emerged in north Wales following the English conquest of 1282. It carefully constructs an image of the way in which townspeople's everyday lives were influenced by their ethnic background, gender, wealth and social status. In this manner it explores and explains the motivations of English and welsh townspeople to work together in the mutual pursuit of prosperity and social stability.

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Ranging from the nineteenth-century to the present, this book explores several central aspects of the ways in which the English-language poetry and fiction of Wales has responded to what was, for a crucial period of a century or so, the dominant culture of Wales: the culture of Welsh Nonconformity. In the introduction, the author reflects on why no sustained attempt has hitherto been made to investigate one of the formative cultural influences on modern 'Anglo-Welsh' literature, the Nonconformist inheritance. The importance of addressing this strange and significant cultural deficit is then explained, and a preliminary attempt made to capture something of the spirit of Welsh Nonconformity. The succeeding chapters address and seek to answer such questions as: What exactly did the Welsh chapels believe and do? Why have the English-language writers of Wales, from Caradoc Evans and Dylan Thomas to R.S. Thomas and the authors of today, been so fascinated by them? How accurate are the impressions we've been given of chapel life and chapel people in the English-language poetry and fiction of Wales? The answers offered may alter our views both of the Welsh Nonconformist past and of Welsh writing in English. One of the ideas advanced is that many of Wales' most important writers went to war with the preachers in their texts, and that their work is therefore the site of cultural struggle. Theirs was a war in words waged to determine who would have the last word on modern Welsh experience.

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This book is an examination of the novels of Emyr Humphreys in the light of his ideas on Wales: Welsh history, Welsh culture and the importance of a separate Welsh identity. It explores Humphreys' practice in the light both of his own theories of culture and fiction and of a variety of models derived from postcolonial theory. Its main conclusions are that there are two particular techniques, the use of Welsh history and of Celtic myth, that have proved particularly central to Humphreys' purposes throughout his career. These have consistently been the principal ways in which he foregrounds for the reader both what it means to be Welsh and the importance, for the nation, of maintaining an understanding of its heritage. And both these key strategies of his fiction should, it is argued, be read as typical postcolonial devices.

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Presents a study in the area of theological education. This title traces the origin and evolution of the formation model of training and identifies what difference this paradigm makes to the practice. It offers ideas for a renewed understanding and praxis of the role of prayer in learning. It is intended for the theological students and teachers.

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Challenges the suggestions that class is no longer relevant for literary analysis. This work examines how the lives and experiences of working-class people have changed, and how these changes have been depicted and explored in a range of fictional and non-fictional texts and films.

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Rhys Davies was a seminal influence in Welsh writing because he was one of the first novelists to depict industrial Wales, and was a highly prolific writer producing some twenty novels and one hundred short stories in a career that spanned six decades. He was also the holder of a complex identity: he was a gay man who grew up as a shopkeeper's son in the Rhondda who left Wales to write about his homeland in England. This book unravels a national experience that is deeply bound up in complex negotiations of class, sexuality, and gender and follows a career that was predicted to be that of 'the representative Welshman'. The book is divided into three sections: the first begins with Davies' childhood in Blaenclydach and the ways in which his memories of his childhood reinforce continuing themes in his stories and novels; the second will place Davies in literary London and address Davies' struggle to enter the privileged circles of literary production, circulation, and reception; and, the final section considers the established Davies of the 1940s, 50s, and 60s.

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Street processions were a defining feature of life in the Victorian town. They were diverse in character and took place regularly throughout the year in all towns. They provided opportunities for men and women to display themselves in public, carrying banners and flags and accompanied by musical bands. Much of the history of nineteenth-century Wales has been written around political demonstrations and revolt, but this book examines how urban communities in Victorian Wales created inclusive civic identities by using the streets for peaceful processions.

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"Selections from Ystorya Bown o Hamtwn" provides edited selections, together with an introduction, notes, and glossary, from a long and entertaining thirteenth century Welsh text which belongs to the genre of medieval translations. The source of "Ystorya Bown" is the "Anglo-Norman Geste de Boeve de Haumtone". This was a very popular tale in the Middle Ages and was translated not only into Welsh, but also into Middle English and Old Norse, and, via an English intermediary, into Early Modern Irish. This story allows fascinating insights into the heroic Christian mentality and world view of its audiences.

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Welsh Environments in Contemporary Poetry' examines the question of how recent English-language poetry from Wales has responded to the diverse physical environments of Wales. The first volume to offer a sustained assessment of Welsh poetry in English within the context of recent developments in environmental literary criticism, this book also draws on aspects of human geography to explore the rich contemporary poetics of Welsh space and place. Opening with an examination of poets from the 1960s as well as the early work of R.S. Thomas, 'Welsh Environments in Contemporary Poetry' subsequently concentrates on the poetry of writers who have come to prominence since the 1970s: Gillian Clarke, Ruth Bidgood, Robert Minhinnick, Mike Jenkins, Christine Evans, and Ian Davidson.Close reading of key texts reveals the way in which these writers variously create Welsh places, landscapes, and environments - fashioning rural and urban spaces into poetic geographies that are both abundantly physical and inescapably cultural. Far from reducing Wales to mere scenery, the poetry that emerges from this book engages with the environments of Wales, not just for their own sake, but as a crucial way of exploring key issues in Welsh culture - from the negotiation of female identity in a land of masculine myths to the exploration of Welsh space in a global context.

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Republicanism and the American Gothic is a comparative study of British and American literature and culture in the late eighteenth and mid-twentieth centuries. Offering an alternative to the psychological readings of the Gothic, this book explores the republican tradition of the British Enlightenment with a focus on the transatlantic influence of seventeenth and eighteenth century libertarian and anti-authoritarian thought on British and American revolutionary culture. Viewing republicanism as a panic-ridden ideology, it is argued that the revolutionary fears of corruption, degeneration and tyranny supply a fertile ground for the development of a Gothic tradition in America. The book then examines the continuing relevance of these fears in Cold War America. It is suggested that the aesthetic, moral and political imperatives that characterized republicanism in the late eighteenth century re-emerge in the post-war era as an antidote to the contemporary fears of communism, conformity and mass culture.

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A volume which examines the development of the Welsh literary canon from the time of Saunders Lewis to the present day. International debates concerning canon formation are read in relation to Welsh literature, and in particular to the critical writings of Saunders Lewis, R. M. (Bobi) Jones and Alan Llwyd.

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By 1300, a region often referred to as the March of Wales had been created between England and the Principality of Wales. This March consisted of some forty castle-centred lordships extending along the Anglo-Welsh border and also across southern Wales. It took shape over more than two centuries, between the Norman conquest of England (1066) and the English conquest of Wales (1283), and is mentioned in Magna Carta (1215). It was a highly distinctive part of the political geography of Britain for much of the Middle Ages, yet the medieval March has long vanished, and today expressions like 'the marches' are used rather vaguely to refer to the Welsh Borders. What was the medieval March of Wales? How and why was it created? The March of Wales, 1067-1300: A Borderland of Medieval Britain provides comprehensible and concise answers to such questions. With the aid of maps, a list of key dates and source material such as the writings of Gerald of Wales (c.1146-1223), this book also places the March in the context of current academic debates on the frontiers, peoples and countries of the medieval British Isles.

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Examines the relationship between language and governance in Europe and Canada, dealing with theoretical debates, constitutional changes, political trends and language initiatives. This volume combines an amalgam of academic scrutiny and knowledge of the intricacies of promoting official and lesser used languages in Canada and parts of the EU.

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Twentieth-Century Women's Writing in Wales documents Welsh women's writing in both Welsh and English in the twentieth century. It identifies a distinctive female literary tradition in which Wales is represented as a 'different country' by its modern women writers; a country in which both Welshness and womanhood are variously lived and performed. This volume is arranged chronologically and deals with a wide range of literary genres, including the short story; the novel; poetry; autobiography, travel writing and drama. It affords long-overdue serious critical attention to the works of early twentieth-century women writers - from the comical short stories of Jane Ann Jones to the powerful naturalist novels of Elena Puw Morgan and free-thinking 'New Woman' Bertha Thomas - while also dealing with better-known literary figures such as Kate Roberts and Gillian Clarke. This pioneering study of twentieth-century writing by Welsh women provides a much-needed alternative literary history to the stereotypical land of male bards.

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The Society of Friends (Quakers) originated in the turmoil of the Civil War years and Interregnum. Examining Friends in Wales, especially in Monmouthshire in the period 1654-1836, this book assesses the lives of Friends, notably how education, careers, and marriage, were determined by a code of conduct.

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Devoted exclusively to the appropriation of Wales, its landscape, history, and culture, by writers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This volume represents a key intervention in on-going debates about the relation between Romanticism and national identity, antiquarianism, politics, print culture and gender.

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History of the Gothic: Gothic Literature 1764-1824 offers a detailed and accessible introduction to classic British Gothic literature and the popular sub-genre of the Female Gothic. Works by such classic Gothic authors as Horace Walpole, Matthew Lewis, Ann Radcliffe, William Godwin and Mary Shelley are examined against the backdrop of eighteenth and nineteenth century British social and political history as well as significant intellectual and cultural developments of the period. Examination of the Gothic's changing literary 'architecture' - its key motifs and conventions - is provided together with an overview of its critical history, an assessment of various theoretical approaches, suggestions for further reading, and a timeline of relevant events and publications.

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Examines issues of sex and society in early twentieth-century Spain, using a specific case history, namely that of Hildegart Rodriguez (1914-1933) who came to be one of the central players in the Spanish chapter of the World League for Sexual Reform (WLSR) and made famous by her dramatic demise when murdered by her mother.

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Why, at a time when the majority of us no longer believe in ghosts, demons or the occult, does Gothic continue to have such a strong grasp upon literature, cinema and popular culture? This book answers the question by exploring some of the ways in which we have applied Gothic tropes to our everyday fears. The book opens with The Turn of the Screw, a text dealing in the dangers adults pose to children whilst simultaneously questioning the assumed innocence of all children. Staying with the domestic arena, it explores the various manifestations undertaken by the haunted house during the twentieth century, from the bombed-out spaces of the blitz ('The Demon Lover' and The Night Watch) to the designer bathrooms of wealthy American suburbia (What Lies Beneath). The monsters that emerge through the uncanny surfaces of the Gothic can also be terror monsters, and after a discussion of terrorism and atrocity in relation to burial alive, the book examines the relationship between the human and the inhuman through the role of the beast monster as manifestation of the evil that resides in our midst (The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Birds). It is with the dangers of the body that the Gothic has been most closely associated and, during the later twentieth century, paranoia attaches itself to skeletal forms and ghosts in the wake of the HIV/AIDS crisis. Sexuality and/as disease is one of the themes of Patrick McGrath's work (Dr Haggard's Disease and 'The Angel') and the issue of skeletons in the closet is also explored through Henry James's 'The Jolly Corner'. However, sexuality is also one of the most liberating aspects of Gothic narratives. After a brief discussion of camp humour in British television drama series Jekyll, the book concludes with a discussion of the apparitional lesbian through the work of Sarah Waters.

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Focuses on the subject of 'melancholy madness' in Spain. This work demonstrates that the subject of melancholy in the Spanish Golden Age is an indispensable link in a chain which may help us to understand the appearance of sadness and malcontent in Europe at the dawn of modernity.

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Offering a contemporary perspective on the theory of modernity that differentiates it from its predecessors, this reconstruction has been expanded to include a fourth instrumental aspect. In addition to the recognition of the three parts of traditional modernity--freedom, equality, and solidarity--that follow the basic ideas of the constitutional revolutions of the 18th century, this updated vision introduces responsibility. Concerning itself with what the sociology of development, risk, and ecological crisis have added to these classical ideas, the addition of the fourth part, responsibility, seeks to recognize the experiences of successive eras, and the 20th century in particular.

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This title brings together in one volume 12 essays (many previously published in Welsh journals) relating to the growth of Protestantism in Wales, from its introduction in the sixteenth century to the Methodist revival two centuries later. Full consideration is given to some of Wales' most prominent individuals during this period, including William Morgan, Maurice Kyffin, John Penry and Lewis Bayly. A variety of sources, including some literary and poetic, are used to further the debate, and the articles are arranged chronologically.

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The first detailed study of the female in the ballad genre. It involves how females were portrayed in eighteenth century ballads, and a vast amount of themes that are within women's experiences are studied. The ballads are also put in their historical and international context. 8 black-and-white pictures.

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"Modernism from the Margins" is an accessible and challenging account of the 1930s writing of two of the most popular authors of the time. Locating the work of Louis MacNeice and Dylan Thomas historically, the book questions standard accounts of the period as Auden-dominated and offers an inclusive and theoretical account of the engagement of both writers with the varieties of Modernism. It is the first reading at length of either MacNeice's or Thomas's work in the light of literary theory, and one of only a handful of texts to look at the writing of the 1930s in these terms. This book is an important contribution to contemporary discussions of both of these writers, and of the general issues of modernism, postmodernism, literary identity, and cultural identity it raises.

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Examines the use of metaphors of monstrosity and the place of the dead in political theory, specifically in relation to conservatism, Marxism and fascism.

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Investigates the drive to create a national theatre as an aspect of the cultural, social and political life of modern Wales. Efforts to establish a National Theatre are discussed as a struggle to define the national identity in a volatile world. This work focuses on how national theatre helps in creation of the modern European Welsh man or woman.

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A volume of essays offering a refreshing insight into the reaction of the Welsh people to war, focusing on a series of conflicts dating from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries; including tables of information, maps and black-and-white illustrations.

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Although studies of gender in medieval culture have tended to focus on femininity, the study of medieval masculinities has developed greatly over the last few years. This book concentrates on this aspect of medieval gender studies, and looks at the ways in which varieties of medieval masculinity intersected with concepts of holiness.

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The writing of good autobiography requires an encounter with oneself that can involve the need to wrestle with potent elements from one's past. This work on 20th-century Welsh autobiography in English traces the psychological influences which have shaped the consciousness and world views of seven authors, all by birth, or by adoption, Welsh

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Although studies of gender in medieval culture have tended to focus on femininity, the study of medieval masculinities has developed greatly over the last few years. This book concentrates on this aspect of medieval gender studies, and looks at the ways in which varieties of medieval masculinity intersected with concepts of holiness.

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There has been much debate over the last decade about the decline of the nation-state and its implications for a series of norms and relationships that govern our understanding of domestic and international society. The book begins with the premise that it is essential to conceive of new forms of citizenship that challenge the iron link between state, nation, territory and sovereignty, and which are therefore capable of meeting the challenges presented by domestic diversity and transnational integration. The argument is for a form of multinational citizenship that provides equal recognition to the citizenship regimes of state and substate nations through a democratic argument for self-determination at the substate level and a revised conception of state sovereignty that is divided and shared.

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Dr Geoffrey Orrin's study contains a detailed account of all those Anglican churches within the county of Glamorgan that were built, rebuilt, restored or re-modelled in any significant way during the Victorian period, 1837-1901. It includes as well as the churches within the county that were part of the diocese of Llandaff, those Anglican places of worship within the deanery of Gower in the western part of that county which was included within the diocese of St David's. The author, greatly to his credit, appears to have closely studied and observed every church in person in addition to assembling all the relevant material he could find amid a wide range of manuscripts and printed sources relating to the work undertaken on the churches. Many churches now demolished or redundant are included in this work. The whole is arranged parish by parish, set out in alphabetical order. The result is the standard work of reference for all those interested in church building and restoration in Victorian times for local historians, students of church history in Glamorgan, clergy, parishioners, librarians and architectural historians. The work is illustrated by 60 monochrome photographs, some of which have never been published before.

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This text maps the history and current situation of the media in Wales in an accessible manner and contributes to current debates on the present and future roles of the Welsh media. It contains chapters on radio, television, the press, cinema and media policy relating to Wales.

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Over the course of the last decade the concept of civil society has come to occupy a place at the heart of public policy. However, civil society is never a neutral concept. What 'civil society' means, as well as what it can and should do, are matters of much debate. This book provides a critical evaluation of some of the main themes and points of contention in debates on civil society, past and present. The contributors explore the relevance of the concept of civil society for thinking about the relationship between state and citizen, the significance of market values within contemporary societies and their impact upon individuals, and about how societies voluntarily organize themselves beyond the state. Written in a lively and accessible style by researchers from a range of disciplines, the book examines dimensions of civil society in contemporary Wales. Reflection on the consequences of devolution for civil society in Wales informs a good deal of the discussion throughout the book. In doing so the contributors draw on recent and new empirical research on Wales, as well as on wider political and social theories of civil society. Topics covered include religion and civil society, the voluntary sector, the media, nationalism, community regeneration, young people and citizenship and ethnic minorities.

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The first academic study of the drama movement in Wales from 1880 until the outbreak of the Second World War.

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Zafer Senocak (b.1961) is an important German literary voice from the large Turkish community in Germany. This study opens with previously unpublished material by Senocak, and includes a biographical essay and interview, as well as essays addressing all aspects of his work.

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From Joan of Arc to Britney Spears, the figure of the virgin has been the subject of considerable scholarly and popular interest. Yet virginity itself is a paradoxical condition, both perfect and monstrous, present and absent, often visible only insofar as it is under threat. Medieval Virginities traces some of the specific manifestations of virginity in late medieval culture. It shows how virginity is represented in medical, legal, hagiographical and historical texts, as well as how the seductive but dangerous figure of the virgin affects the aims and objectives of these texts. Because virginity is so often thought of as self-identical and ahistorical, Medieval Virginities aims to theorize and historicize its various manifestations and to demonstrate how representations and discussions of virginity continuously shift and change. The variety of subjects and disciplines represented here testify both to the elusiveness of virginity and to its lasting appeal and importance. Medieval Virginities shows how virginity's inherent ambiguity highlights the problems, contradictions and discontinuities lurking within medieval ideologies. It will be essential reading for anyone interested in questions of gender identity, conceptions of the body, subjectivity, truth and representation in medieval culture.

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Making Sense of Wales gives an account of the main changes that have taken place in Welsh society over the last fifty years, as well as analysing the major efforts to interpret those changes. By placing work done in Wales in the context of broader developments within sociological approaches over the period, Graham Day demonstrates that there is a body of work on Wales worth considering in its own right as a specific contribution to sociology. He also shows the relevance of sociological accounts of Wales for understanding contemporary empirical and theoretical concerns in social analysis. Beginning with post-war analysis which considered Wales in terms of regional planning and policy, Day shows how more theoretically informed perspectives have come to the fore in recent years. He also examines more contemporary developments, such as gender and class transformations, the emphasis on the centrality of the Welsh language for conceptions of Wales and Welshness, as well as the impact of new forms of governance and questions of social exclusion.

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This text evaluates the legal and constitutional aspects of devolution. Drawing on interviews with those responsible for the devolutionary scheme, it considers the internal architecture and operation of the National Assembly, and Wales's relationship with Britain and the European Union.

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'John Rawls: Towards a Just World Order' is a concise and detailed analysis of one of the foremost political philosophers of our time that demonstrates the importance of Rawls's work for contemporary debates regarding international relations, world politics and human rights.

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This Welsh-English dictionary consists of 1500 words. In the Welsh-English section, a comprehensive system to help find mutated forms of words is introduced, and parts of speech and many plurals are included.

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A collection of 13 varied articles by renowned scholars dealing with various aspects of literature, in particular the relationship between literature and technology, from the early days of printing to the present where revolutionary changes in technology provide a means of spreading literature to other popular cultural forms.

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Although Federico García Lorca is well-known to the English speaking public as a playwright and as the author of Romancero gitano and Poeta en Nueva York, his early poetry has received surprisingly scant critical consideration. D. Gareth Walters corrects this imbalance by concentrating on Lorca's work up to and including Canciones, the culmination of his early poetry, which was published in 1927. Beginning with a detailed survey of Lorca's juvenilia and early published poetry, Walters traces the development of Lorca's work up to Canciones and offers a full and detailed reading of that collection which explicates many poems often thought to be obscure or enigmatic. Rather than attempting to decode the poetry's symbols and images or interpret it by reference to extra-literary concerns, Walters focuses instead on the constitution of meaning in Lorca's work. He offers a valuable new way of reading Lorca that makes full use of modern scholarship while also placing the poetry in its poetic, cultural and intellectual contexts. 'Canciones' and the Early Poetry of Lorca is a pioneering reassessment of the early writing of one of the most significant Spanish writers of the twentieth century.

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This work aims at presenting Kitchener Davies as a pioneering, versatile author whose literary output continues to be of value. The selection also contains two introductory essays - the first introduces the man and his work and the second is a semi-personal view of Davis by his daughter Manon Rhys.

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"A Forgotten Army" reconstructs the experiences of Welsh women who undertook essential munitions work during World War II. The events of wartime are placed against the background of the wider Welsh social, economic and cultural context.

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A thorough and penetrating analysis of the moderate Calvinistic thought and theology of the Puritan author Morgan Llwyd (1619-1659), as revealed in his writing.

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