Presences That Disturb - Models of Romantic Identity in the Literature and Culture of the 1790s (Hardcover)

A study of five figures associated in important ways with Wales, this book looks at the impact on the literature and culture of the late 18th century, heretofore neglected. The five figures studied are Tewdrig, , the Dark-Age hermit-king and saint; Vortigern, the Dark-Age traitor; the Polish general Kosciusko; the radical Welsh "Bard of Liberty, " Edward Williams (Iolo Morganwg); and the Jacobin demagogue John Thelwall. Shown are how major figures of the decade such as Wordsworth and Coleridge used these figures as models for their own identities and as a means to define their ideological and emotional positions with regard to the political and cultural debates generated by the French Revolution. Also discussed is the impact of a specifically Welsh discourse on the personal and political consciousness of many writers in this period.