The spiritual and cultural promise of Wales

The identity of Wales has been re-examined over the last forty years as the exhaustion of its natural resources have depleted the communities which developed around those local industries. The mining industry developed a cultural response that shaped the nation but today that shape has lost its form.The search for a re-invigorated national identity is an attempt to forge a new mould in a shrinking world. A spiritual awakening is perhaps a next step in understanding and developing the essence of that identity.

Introduction to Welsh literature

Much Welsh literature is unknown outside the borders of the principality. Anglo-Welsh poets, on the other hand, such as Dylan Thomas are famous throughout the literary world. They wrote in English. The very nature of the Welsh language, so vastly different from every other in Europe (with the exception of Breton with which it shares a common heritage) restricts its understanding to perhaps no more than half a million people.

Planetmagazine.org
Planet is a bi-monthly magazine covering the arts, culture and politics in Wales and beyond. In addition to features on and interviews with contemporary Welsh artists and writers, it includes political analysis, both of Welsh affairs and international issues. Several poems and one short story are published in every issue of the magazine.

A cultural responses:

• Wikipedia: Saint David (gives good historical context)
• Schools resources from Data Wales
• Saint David's Cathedral, Pembrokeshire, Wales
• Welsh costume: a general introduction
• How to make cawl - always a controversial topic
• The annual National Eisteddfod of Wales, held in the first week of August
• Urdd Gobaith Cymru hold the national Welsh youth eisteddfod in late May each year
• The History and Status of the Welsh Language
• An online Welsh course
• Welsh-language computer software, on Windows, Mac and on Linux

This page was last updated:  May 2, 2007 5:34