Safe Haven, Literary Paradise and Present-Day Adventureland

This chapter analyses the new interpretative frameworks offered by travel narratives published between the late 1980s and the present day. As a prelude, the chapter offers a snapshot of the ‘lost decades’ of the interwar and post-war years, when travel accounts on Wales were far less frequent than before the First World War. It explores how the trope of a hidden, undiscovered and unknown Wales has proven to be surprisingly persistent, with the continued common portrayal of Wales as a quasi-invisible unknown quantity, a peripheral site of inspiration and alterity. Once Wales resurfaced in mainstream Continental travel writing in the 1980s, it was viewed as an entity and often a country in its own right. Yet paradoxically, Wales’s increasing accessibility, through the proliferation of dedicated guidebooks and travel websites as well as improvements to its travel infrastructure, also led to the atomization and fragmentation of visions of Wales and modes of experiencing the nation. These include a sensory or physical ‘consumption’ of Wales, the ‘internationalization’ of Wales for a global visitor and a shift away from engagement with the Welsh language and its cultures, leading to their neutralization and dilution.

Periphery, Modernity and the Discovery of Wales in Travel Writing in German from 1790 to 1850

This was a period of discovery, with many German-speaking travellers exploring the notion of Wales from a position of ignorance. Consequently, Wales is framed as a peripheral ‘other’ throughout, but nevertheless gradually establishes a presence in the German understanding of the British Isles. This is underpinned by a deeply conflicted reading. Some writers focus on an exoticized, Romanticized Wales which is also seen to be colonized and threatened by its dominant neighbour. Other works highlight the impact, but also the desirability of encroaching modernity in the shape of industry and tourism. Most of these travellers are drawn by sublime landscapes and ancient ruins, as well as developments in mining and infrastructure. Writers adopt different prisms through which to observe Wales but as time goes on, these begin to merge as the beginnings of a recognisable tourist trail develop. Central throughout, however, is an ongoing critique of the English domination of Wales, often described explicitly in colonial terms. This serves to undermine the image of England (as a cipher for Great Britain) as a paradigmatic locus of progressive ideals for the German-speaking lands in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars and on the brink of industrial revolution.

Introduction

The growth in the popularity of Wales as travel destination in the late eighteenth century is sketched, while the relative ‘invisibility’ of Wales in travel writing as well as in scholarship is noted. ‘Europe’ is presented as a fluid entity, and the ‘nationalities’ of the travellers discussed is problematized (e.g. a number of the French travellers studied identify as Breton, and the notion of ‘Germany’ encompasses numerous states and political alliances over time). Since Wales’s ‘Celticness’ is a major theme for travellers throughout the periods under discussion, the changing uses of the term ‘Celtic’ (and its derivatives) are explored. Wales is positioned as a case study or an exemplar of a particular type of relationship between peripheral and hegemonic culture(s), through a discussion of general theoretical issues surrounding the ethics of travel, the contact zone and the notion of the travellee. This draws on work by Cronin on minorities, Forsdick on ethics, Pratt on the contact zone and travellees, and Urbain on endotic/exotic travel.

Identity, Celtomania and the Narrative of Wales in Travel Writing in German from 1850 to 1905

The focus of travelogues shifts from the industrial to the cultural, while the advance of Celtic Studies on the Continent leads to a far deeper engagement with the indigenous culture. Many such engaged writers viewed the development of tourism, of which they were of course a symptom, as a palpable threat to the survival of Welsh culture. This reflects concerns about the situation closer to home as the German states moved towards unification in 1871 and the realisation of a political underpinning to the long-held sense of a common ‘national’ German identity. The image of Wales which emerges by the end of the century is a distillation of cultural elements, - bards, princes, legends, - which can to some extent be seen as an attempt to preserve the cultural alterity deemed to be under threat. This century of Germanophone writing about Wales sees the consolidation of a Welsh narrative which, while sharing numerous themes with Francophone writers, nevertheless addresses over time a number of key German concerns around national identity, the advance of modernity and the place of ancient cultures in the modern world.

Conclusion

The concluding chapter draws together the book’s key themes, focusing on the various prisms – Celtic, Breton, English, sublime, Romantic, industrial, modern, touristic, colonial – through which Wales has been viewed. These distorting prisms are shown always to reflect the home culture, whether it be France’s need to reconnect with her Celtic ancestry following the trauma of Revolution, or the German-speaking lands’ anxieties about their own slow democratic and industrial advance. The importance of Wales as a haven constitutes a significant trope in Continental travel writing from the French Revolution and 1848, to the First World War, which brought thousands of Belgians to Wales, the Spanish civil war, and Nazi-occupied Europe. Over the centuries Wales is discovered, lost and rediscovered, shifting in and out of view, from blind spot to blank canvas. It is only really in the twentieth century that Wales is treated on its own terms in travel writing, beginning with the French narratives of the 1904-05 religious revival. The book ends by stressing the value of travel writing and multilingual research as a means to interrogate centre-periphery and, importantly periphery-periphery relations.

Landscape, Industry, Piety

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.

Patriotism, Pan-Celticism and the Welsh Cultural Paradigm in Travel Writing in French from 1830 to 1900

This chapter covers the period when Wales’s Celticness dominated French views. It contrasts travelogues by ‘Celtomaniac’ visitors with those by travellers with other agendas, such as social justice. While industrial locations in south Wales continued to attract French interest, discussion of the Welsh language and culture is now often inseparable from the descriptions of the changing landscape and workforce. A number of these texts describe Eisteddfodau, and discussion of a cluster of travelogues prompted by the visit of a Breton delegation to the Cardiff National Eisteddfod of 1899 considers to what extent these travellers’ idealized expectations of Wales as a role model, in terms of its ability to adapt to modernity while preserving its traditions, are met. Nevertheless, this episode also suggests the extent to which encounters between peripheries remain within and become subsumed by the mediating framework of the relationship with the centre, as Bretons and Welsh negate their reciprocal cultural identities by designating the other as English and French. Both French chapters show Wales going from a little-known quantity to being considered as an intriguing Celtic ‘other’.