‘Wee wenhonourGhosetrayn’: The spectres of Welsh writing in English 1988-2019

O'Brien, Martha 2024. ‘Wee wenhonourGhosetrayn’: The spectres of Welsh writing in English 1988-2019. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

At the close of the twentieth century, something spooky was happening in Welsh writing in English. These turbulent and changing times, wrought by unemployment, linguistic struggle and a narrow victory for devolution, saw Welsh identity and history called into question more urgently than ever before. A new, different form of Wales was emerging politically and through the writing coming out of this period, even as the ghosts of previous national narratives continued to linger in both fiction and popular media. This thesis, while building upon the existing critical perspectives of Welsh theorists, is the first in-depth critical study to claim that contemporary Welsh writing in English experienced a ‘spectral turn’ at the turn of the twentieth century. I analyse the work of four authors working across a span of genre and form in the thirty-year period of 1988-2019: Christopher Meredith; Niall Griffiths; Leonora Brito; and Menna Elfyn, in conjunction with Jacques Derrida’s deconstructionist and spectral theory, and argue that a rapid pace of change occurring both globally and in Wales in technological, economic and social contexts had a profound effect upon the literature that was written during this time. I argue that these are works which are enlightened by, and in turn enlighten, Derridean spectral theory which emerged at the beginning of this period; they occupy a liminal space, engage with the uncanny, and the ghosts which haunt these texts are always political. Across so many spaces of change, what the nation found in common was a growing sense of uncanniness and untimeliness – of haunting.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Date Type:	Completion
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	English, Communication and Philosophy
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > PR English literature
Funders:	SWW-DTP, AHRC
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	5 August 2024
Last Modified:	05 Aug 2024 15:05
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/171127

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