Landscape, Industry, Piety

Abstract

French texts written during the French Revolution, the period of rapid industrialization that followed it, and the 1904-1905 Welsh Revival are shown to reflect concerns in France. Following the Revolution the young Republic was grappling with the reinvention of its own past, and both the Gauls and Celts came into vogue. This is reflected in the development of travelogues to Wales, in which Switzerland, the dominant Romantic point of comparison slowly gives way to a concern with Celticness, and Brittany becomes the preferred prism through which to view Wales. A wish to view industrial progress and feats of engineering first hand is the other factor responsible for the huge increase in French travelogues to Wales during the course of the nineteenth century. By the start of the twentieth century however, the industrial communities of south Wales are the setting for a religious Revival, and travelogues from this period interpret the Revival as a specifically Welsh phenomenon. The chapter concludes that the Revival narratives constitute a paradigmatic shift, as continental travellers begin to view Wales on its own terms, rather than through the filters of Switzerland, Brittany or England.