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Episode 54 – ‘The earth shook: an introduction to the Welsh literature of the ‘Civil Wars’

Literature

There is a great amount of Welsh-language literature surviving which is related to the ‘Civil Wars’ between Parliament and King Charles I.

We note in this episode that the most famous Welsh author of the period, Morgan Llwyd, was a Puritan who supported the Senate, and we quote from a poem by him which describes the warfare as an earthquake shaking his world. However, most seventeenth-century Welsh people supported the king, and we discuss how one Welsh poet suffered because of his political and religious loyalties. And although there are many texts which testify to the connections between Welsh people and the conflict and violence, we also look at one example which reminds us that it is not lightly that one takes literature as a reliable historical source.

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