A Tale of Two Bridges: The Poetry and Politics of Infrastructure in Nineteenth-Century Wales

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin Koehler
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
English Language ◽  
Suspension Bridge ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Welsh Language ◽  
North Wales ◽  
Technical Planning ◽  
Popular Images ◽  
British Nationalism ◽  
Selection Of

Abstract Drawing on Brian Larkin’s concept of ‘infrastructural poetics’, this article considers and compares a selection of English- and Welsh-language poems, by writers including Eliza Mary Hamilton, Frederick Faber, Richard Llwyd, and Eben Fardd, about two nineteenth-century infrastructures that transformed North Wales and Great Britain’s relationship to Ireland: the Menai Suspension Bridge (1826), and the Britannia Tubular Bridge (1850). I argue that these non-canonical poems complement perspectives derived from parliamentary records, official reports, technical planning documents, scientific manuals, and journalism, enhancing our understanding of the nineteenth-century infrastructural imagination. Specifically, building on the association of infrastructural development and modernity, I explore how the poems under discussion participate in nineteenth-century negotiations about Wales’s place and future in the United Kingdom, and how these negotiations evolved between 1819 and 1852. I show that, although Wales was the site of impressive engineering feats and accelerating industrial extraction, English-language poems present the Menai Bridge in picturesque terms, drawing on popular images of the Celtic fringe that evoke timeless, ideal beauty. Anglophone verse about Britannia Bridge, by contrast, focuses explicitly on the infrastructure’s technological modernity but claims it as an English landmark. Both strategies, I suggest, effect an erasure of Wales – as a distinct cultural and political entity – from a future conceived as Anglo-British. Poems written in Welsh, and the work of Welsh writers in English, complicate this picture, not because they reject British nationalism and imperialism, but because they seek to embed a modern Welsh nation more centrally within those political and ideological frameworks.

Law, Lawyers, and Humanism

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
John W Cairns
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Legal History ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Distinguished Career ◽  
Further Development ◽  
Selection Of

The first of two volumes, this collection of essays on Scots law represents a selection of the most cited articles published by Professor John W. Cairns over a distinguished career in legal history. It is a mark of his international eminence that much of his prolific output has been published outside of the United Kingdom, in a wide variety of journals and collections. The consequence is that some of his most valuable writing has appeared in sources which are difficult to locate. This collection covers the foundation and continuity of Scots law from sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Scotland through the eighteenth-century influence of Dutch Humanism into the nineteenth century and the further development of the Scots legal system and profession.

The indexing of Welsh personal names

1990 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-20
Author(s):  
Donald Moore
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Initial Letter ◽  
Linguistic Feature ◽  
Personal Names ◽  
Welsh Language ◽  
Special Value ◽  
Restricted Selection ◽  
Selection Of

Welsh personal names sometimes present the indexer with problems not encountered when dealing with English names. The Welsh patronymic system of identity is the most obvious; this was normal in the Middle Ages, and traces of its usage survived into the mid-nineteenth century. Patronymics have since been revived as alternative names in literary and bardic circles, while a few individuals, inspired by the precedents of history, are today attempting to use them regularly in daily life. Other sorts of alternative names, too, have been adopted by writers, poets, artists and musicians, to such effect that they are often better known to the Welsh public than the real names. A distinctive pseudonym has a special value in Wales, where a restricted selection of both first names and surnames has been the norm for the last few centuries. Apart from the names themselves, there is in Welsh a linguistic feature which can be disconcerting to those unfamiliar with the language: the ‘mutation’ or changing of the initial letter of a word in certain phonetic and syntactic contexts. This can also occur in place-names, which were discussed by the present writer in The Indexer 15 (1) April 1986. Some of the observations made there about the Welsh language will be relevant here also.

Tauchnitz for Translators. The Circulation of English-language Literature in Finland

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 161-179
Author(s):  
Outi Paloposki
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
English Language ◽  
Book History ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Book Production ◽  
German Publisher ◽  
Language Literature ◽  
Selection Of

The article looks at book production and circulation from the point of view of translators, who, as purchasers and readers of foreign-language books, are an important mediating force in the selection of literature for translation. Taking the German publisher Tauchnitz's series ‘Collection of British Authors’ and its circulation in Finland in the nineteenth and early twentieth century as a case in point, the article argues that the increased availability of English-language books facilitated the acquiring and honing of translators' language skills and gradually diminished the need for indirect translating. Book history and translation studies meet here in an examination of the role of the Collection in Finnish translators' work.

ON LITERATURE AND GRAMMAR: A Selection of Annotated Medieval and Renaissance English Texts for (Spanish) University Students

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gema Chocano Díaz ◽  
Noelia Hernando Real
Keyword(s):  
William Shakespeare ◽  
University Students ◽  
Geoffrey Chaucer ◽  
English Language ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Christopher Marlowe ◽  
Sir Philip Sidney ◽  
William Langland ◽  
Sir Thomas Wyatt ◽  
Selection Of

On Literature and Grammar gives students and instructors a carefully thought experience to combine their learning of Middle and Early Modern English and Medieval and Renaissance English Literature. The selection of texts, which include the most commonly taught works in university curricula, allows readers to understand and enjoy the evolution of the English language and the main writers and works of these periods, from William Langland to Geoffrey Chaucer, from Sir Philip Sidney to Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, and from Christopher Marlowe to William Shakespeare. Fully annotated and written to answer the real needs of current Spanish university students, these teachable texts include word-by-word translations into Present Day English and precise introductions to their linguistic and literary contexts.

A content analysis of gender representation in Malaysian children's literature

2008 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 49
Author(s):  
Ramesh Nair
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Children's Literature ◽  
English Language ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Children's Books ◽  
Children’S Books ◽  
Minor Characters ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Mental Schemas ◽  
Selection Of

Children's literature serves as a powerful medium through which children construct messages about their roles In society and gender Identity is often central to this construction. Although possessing mental schemas about gender differences is helpful when children organize their ideas of the world around them, problems occur when children are exposed to a constant barrage of uncompromising, gender-schematic sources that lead to stereotyping which in turn represses the full development of the child. This paper focuses on how gender is represented in a selection of Malaysian children's books published in the English language. Relying on the type of content analysis employed by previous feminist social science researchers, I explore this selection of Malaysian children's books for young children and highlight some areas of concern with regard to the construction of maleness and femaleness in these texts. The results reveal Imbalances at various levels Including the distribution of main, supporting and minor characters along gendered lines and the positioning of male and female characters In the visual Illustrations. The stereotyping of these characters In terms of their behavioural traits will be discussed with the aim of drawing attention to the need for us to take concerted measures to provide our children with books that will help them realize their potential to the fullest.

Ethnic Identity in English Language Textbooks: Considerations for a Multicultural Society

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 77
Author(s):  
Puspalata C A/P Suppiah ◽  
Ramesh Nair
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Identity Construction ◽  
Primary Schools ◽  
English Language ◽  
Multicultural Society ◽  
Verbal Language ◽  
Language Textbooks ◽  
Selection Of

There is evidence to suggest that young children more readily absorb the subtle messages that are encoded in any type of text and talk, and what they take away from these texts contributes in helping them develop their own identity in relation to their role in society. In this paper, we examine the construction of ethnic identity in a selection of English language textbooks targeted at young Malaysian children in primary schools. Based on a content analysis of visual and verbal language in two Primary Three English language textbooks, we report on the encoded messages that are transmitted to young Malaysian children about their place in society. The findings reveal significant imbalances in the way characters of different ethnic backgrounds are represented. This imbalance is a cause for concern as the message conveyed to young Malaysian children could be potentially damaging. Keywords: textbook, ethnicity, identity construction

The Command of the Sea

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David G. Morgan-Owen
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
British Isles ◽  
Royal Navy ◽  
Naval Warfare ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Late Nineteenth

The Royal Navy thought about war in a particular way in the late nineteenth century. This chapter explains how the contemporary Navy understood strategy as it pertained to protecting the United Kingdom from invasion. By examining the different approaches taken to war against France and Germany between 1885 and 1900 it shows how the Admiralty understood the defence of the British Isles in this period in largely symmetrical terms. The battle fleet remained key to naval warfare and to preventing invasion, but it did not need to be shackled to the British coastline in order to prevent a hostile power from attempting to cross the Channel.

Veiling Esther, Unveiling Her Story

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam J. Silverstein
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Religious Background ◽  
Literary Context ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Selection Of

This book examines the ways in which the biblical book of Esther was read, understood, and used in Muslim lands, from ancient to modern times. It zeroes-in on a selection of case studies, covering works from various periods and regions of the Muslim world, including the Qur’an, premodern historical chronicles and literary works, the writings of a nineteenth-century Shia feminist, a twentieth-century Iranian dictionary, and others. These case studies demonstrate that Muslim sources contain valuable materials on Esther, which shed light both on the Esther story itself and on the Muslim peoples and cultures that received it. The book argues that Muslim sources preserve important, pre-Islamic materials on Esther that have not survived elsewhere, some of which offer answers to ancient questions about Esther, such as the meaning of Haman’s epithet in the Greek versions of the story, the reason why Mordecai refused to prostrate himself before Haman, and the literary context of the “plot of the eunuchs” to kill the Persian king. Furthermore, throughout the book we will see how each author’s cultural and religious background influenced his or her understanding and retelling of the Esther story: In particular, it will be shown that Persian Muslims (and Jews) were often forced to reconcile or choose between the conflicting historical narratives provided by their religious and cultural heritages respectively.

The Novel in English in Malaya and Singapore to 1950

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamara Wagner
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
East Asia ◽  
English Language ◽  
Joseph Conrad ◽  
Civil Servant ◽  
Civil Servants ◽  
East India Company ◽  
South East Asia ◽  
The Novel ◽  
English East India Company

This chapter looks at the representations of the former British Straits Settlements in English fiction from 1819 to 1950, discussing both British literary works that are located in South East Asia and English-language novels from Singapore and Malaysia. Although over the centuries, Europeans of various nationalities had located, intermarried, and established unique cultures throughout the region, writing in the English language at first remained confined to travel accounts, histories, and some largely anecdotal fiction, mostly by civil servants. English East India Company employees wrote about the region, often weaving anecdotal sketches into their historical, geographical, and cultural descriptions. Civil servant Hugh Clifford and Joseph Conrad are the two most prominent writers of fiction set in the British Straits Settlements during the nineteenth century; they also epitomize two opposing camps in representing the region.

The Oxford Handbook of the Operatic Canon

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Musical Theater ◽  
Geographical Location ◽  
The United States ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Limited Sample ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
Formation History ◽  
Artistic Directors ◽  
Selection Of

This collection examines the phenomenon of the operatic canon: its formation, history, current ontology and practical influence, and future. It does so by taking an international and interdisciplinary view: the workshops from which it was derived included the participation of critics, producers, artistic directors, stage directors, opera company CEOs, and even economists, from the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Italy, Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Canada. The volume is structured as a series of dialogues: each subtopic is addressed by two essays, introduced jointly by the authors, and followed by a jointly compiled list of further reading. These paired essays complement each other in different ways, for example by treating the same geographical location in different periods, by providing different national or regional perspectives on the same period, or by thinking through similar conceptual issues in contrasting milieus. Part I consists of a selection of surveys of operatic production and consumption contexts in France, Italy, Germany, England, Russia, and the Americas, arranged in rough order from the late seventeenth century to the late nineteenth century. Part II is a (necessarily) limited sample of subjects that illuminate the operatic canon from different—sometimes intentionally oblique—angles, ranging from the influence of singers to the contiguous genres of operetta and musical theater, and the effects of recording and broadcast over almost 150 years. The volume concludes with two essays written by prominent figures from the opera industry who give their sense of the operatic canon’s evolution and prospects.

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