‘As Pure as Steel’: The Blue Books and Women’s Literature
We continue to discuss the effect of the ‘Blue Books’ on Welsh literature, concentrating this time on the Welsh woman’s literary voice
This episode’s title pays tribute to Jane Aaron’s excellent study Pur fel y Dur[:] Y Gymraes yn Llên Menywod y Bedwaredd Ganrif ar Bymtheg (‘As Pure as Steel: The Welsh woman in Women’s Literature of the Nineteenth Century’), a volume which, in the words of its author, examines the way in wich ‘a new heroine appeared’ ‘from the purgatory of the Englishman’s slander’. We consider the first volume of Welsh poetry published by a woman, namely Telyn Egryn by Elin Evans or ‘Elen Egryn’. We also look at Gwilym Hiraethog’s introduction to the book, a text which, in addition to other things, compares (the lack of) literature by Welsh women with English women’s literary produce. We then get an opportunity to mention the periodical Y Gymraes: cylchgrawn i ferched Cymru (‘The Welshwoman: a journal for women’).