. But I don't think it was fair to single Wales out (David
> B) as culture-starved and lacking in a sense of identity.

Matthew

I think this is where our wires are being crossed. My original and aside
remark on the topic was in the context of the cultural imbalance caused by
the gravitational centricity of London in British culture as a whole, unlike
the sitiuation vis-a-vis the capital cities of Spain, Italy, Germany or the
U.S (my examples) during which I mentioned that Scotland could, in the
British context, be regarded as, culturally, another 'country', the
implication being that it was articulated and strong enough to maintain a
distinct cultural independence, unlike the situation in Wales in _recent_
years, which I considered to have imploded culturally, as a result ofv the
pressures of 'colonialist' cultural gravities. And this was an occasion for
regret, not English dismissal of Wales and the Welsh. I metioned, as I keep
mentioning, that there was some resistance, albeit threatened, in the idea
of Gwynedd, alto' I could note with irony how the most recent reorganisation
of local government had returned that area to its anglicized and former
disintegation of poilitical units, but the literary/poetic culture that of
the 'idea of the South' was largely one that was subservient to, and
imitative of, models derived from the notional metropolitan centre.
It's not that I dismiss all Welsh writing, but my general response would be
akin to David Kennedy's reaction to the Seren anthology, the writers of
interest in Wales seeming few and isolated. The discussion then got bogged
down in asservations of cultural 'health' in matters that I would not
consider particularly sanguine, such as sports-mania or a downtrodden
humorous self-deprecation among the working-classes. I do not write from
outside the culture of lower-class life, being part of it all my life, nor
do I write from a perspective of distance to Wales, I love the country and
what I wrote was in sorrow not anger, and the culturally colonised
enfeeblement I attribute to it is one that I would also see as shared with
the English regions, if one may recall that the original focus of my opinion
was the distortion inflicted on British culture by the 'idea of London',
with its outliers, which acts as it were almost as a weight tilting the
landscape into its own hungry direction. So the 'singling out' of Wales was
an aside only, contrastative to Scotland.

best

david


----- Original Message -----
From: Matthew Francis <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, February 08, 2001 11:44 PM
Subject: Re: Wales


> I am not making any particular claims (David K) for a Welsh poetic
> renaissance. I still don't know Welsh poetry well enough to be able to say
> one way or another. But I don't think it was fair to single Wales out
(David
> B) as culture-starved and lacking in a sense of identity. That has been
very
> far from my experience of the country. And I am only too aware, as one who
> lived for many years within a hundred miles of the Welsh border without
much
> curiosity about what might be on the other side, how prone the English are
> to be dismissive of Wales and the Welsh.
>
> Individual points:
>
> >I hardly think R.S.Thomas was a supporter of Welsh colonisation.
>
>
> I didn't say he was.
>
> >Believe me, working-class self-deprecatory humour is not peculiar to
Wales.
>
>
> Maybe not. My feeling is that this humour (specifically Valleys humour)
has
> a character of its own. I can't prove it, but I do experience it
regularly.
>
> >I know rugby union is a working-class game in Wales, unlike much of
> England,
> >but sports mania does not indicate cultural florescence, otherwise the
> >pub-centre of Newcastle on a Saturday night is an artistic renaissance,
and
> >standing among a crowd of Liverpool supporters at Whiteheart Lane hearing
a
> >guy goin 'fucking yids' without stop for half-an-hour represents the
growth
> >of awareness of others, while watching a guy getting all his ribs kicked
in
> >Aston Park by about a dozen Villa supporters because he wasn't one of
them
> >is obviously a street art recreation of Goya.
>
> What you're talking about has little to do with sport. If football had
never
> been invented, these thugs would find some other reason to beat each other
> up. Wales has its share of thugs too, of course. Nevertheless this kind of
> violence is not generally part of the Welsh rugby culture I was talking
> about. It's the preserve of young males, whereas Welsh rugby, as I was
> saying, seems to unite both sexes and all ages. In fact even in the rest
of
> Britain rugby fans are not generally violent - the violence is all on the
> pitch.
>
> >You might like to know too that the number of Welsh speakers in the South
> has been >greater than the North for a longtime, the difference being that
> the speaking >communities of the South are not as homogenous as in the
> North.
>
> This is not very meaningful given the huge difference in population
between
> the South and the North. The *proportion* is higher in the North. But in
> any case it wouldn't affect my argument, which is that the Welsh language,
> if not exactly thriving, is in a healthier state than it has been for
years.
> As John Davies points out in his history of Wales, children can be heard
> playing in Welsh in the streets of Cardiff.
>
> I agree, arguments of this kind do become tedious, and they also take us
> away from poetry. If the list had one or two Welsh members to stick up for
> their country, I would probably leave it to those better informed.
> Meanwhile,
>
> Nos Da
>
> Matthew
>