Beyond the Difference: Welsh Literature in Comparative Contexts

About the Book

Beyond the Difference is a celebration of the work of Wales's leading literary critic M. Wynn Thomas, with contributions from internationally acclaimed writers and poets, as well as significant critics working in the field. Looking initially at the relationships between the English and Welsh language literatures of Wales, the volume proceeds to explore the interactions of nationhood and gender from the late nineteenth century to the present day, the politics of translation in Wales as compared to Ireland and America, and the intriguing connections between Welsh literature and American, African American, Irish and Jewish literary traditions.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Alyce von Rothkirch and Daniel Williams; 1. Cymru and Wales Poem: Emyr Humphreys; Hywel Teifi Edwards, Y Pentre Gwyn and Manteg: from blessed plot to hotspot; Tony Brown, '...Stories from foreign countries': the short-stories of Kate Roberts and Margiad Evans; Jasmine Donahaye, 'Gartref-Bron': Adversity and Refuge in the Jewish literature of Wales. 2. Engendering Wales Poem: Gillian Clarke; Kirsti Bohata, En-gendering a New Wales: female allegories, home-rule and imperialism 1890 - 1910; Alyce von Rothkirch, 'There's a change come over the valley': the crisis of Masculinism in Early 20th Century Welsh Drama in English; Jane Aaron, Valleys Women Writing 3. American Perspectives Poem: Menna Elfyn (translated by Joseph Clancy); Helen Vendler, Under Milk Wood: Lists Made and Undone; Barbara Prys Williams, Web of Connections: Denise Levertov's constructions of origins; Daniel Williams, 'For Old Tom read Uncle Tom': Emlyn Williams, Ralph Ellison and the Invisible Man's Welsh routes 4. Translations Poem: Tony Conran; Dafydd Johnston, Early Translations of Dafydd ap Gwilym; Melinda Gray, 'Uncle Tom's Welsh Dress': Ethnicity, Authority and Translation; Michael Cronin, Global Questions and Local Visions: A Microcosmopolitan Perspective 5. Welsh Correspondences Poem: Grahame Davies; Jeremy Hooker, Poetic Lands and Border-lands: Henry Vaughan to Robert Frost; James A. Davies, 'in a different place, / changed': Dannie Abse, Dylan Thomas, T. S. Eliot and Wales; Katie Gramich, 'Extravagant and Wheeling Strangers': Dylan Thomas, Derek Walcott and the House of English Literature. M. Wynn Thomas: A Bibliography Compiled by Rhian Reynolds.

About the Author :
Daniel Williams is a lecturer in English at the University of Wales, Swansea. He is the editor of Raymond William's Who Speaks for Wales? (2003) and has published widely on nineteenth- and twentieth-century Welsh writing in English. Alyce von Rothkirch is Widening Participation Research Officer at the Centre for Community and Lifelong Learning, University of Wales College, Newport.

Review :
' an unusually rich and festal Festchrift for the doyen of our critics.' Planet