Welsh Journals

can be done, they might look at the slim but beautifully produced Two Mediaeval Welsh Poems [on St. Winefride's well], edited by T. M. Charles-Edwards in 1971. This fine study has been published at a price which will put it within the reach of everyone interested in the ecclesiastical architecture of Wales. It is to be hoped that it will also stimulate others to make an up-to-date catalogue of the monuments and furnishings of this splendid church. F. G. COWLEY Swansea THE HEART OF WALES. Edited by James A. Davies. Seren Press, Bridgend, 1994. Pp. 294. £ 5.95. The Heart of Wales is an anthology of Anglo-Welsh writing and Welsh writing in translation, designed to supplement history courses at both GCSE and A-level. The anthology consists of short stories, excerpts from novels and poems which are arranged under useful subject headings, each with its own helpful and perceptive introduction: 'Wales the Day Before Yesterday', 'Work', 'Politics and Protest', 'Leisure, Sport and Culture', 'Chapel and Church', 'Education', 'Courting-Domestic Life-Women' and 'Wales Today'. Whilst Kate Roberts, T. Rowland Hughes, D. J. Williams and a few others represent north and rural mid Wales, the text is primarily concerned with the experience of living in industrial south Wales. More precisely, as James A. Davies tells us in his introduc- tion, the anthology attempts to delineate 'the epic transformation of a rural country into a powerhouse of the industrial and social revolution', with its attendant 'destruction of old ways, sacking of landscapes, dreadful exploitation, human suffering and despair' [p. 13]. One inevitably notices the omissions in an anthology of any kind, and the primary concern with industrial south Wales explains the omission of works by Dylan Thomas, Alun Lewis, David Jones and Dannie Abse, for we are told that their 'links with the southern coastal plains, urban suburbs and south-east England' are 'social and cultural light-years away from the world of coal, iron, slate and muck' [p. 17], the volume's main concern. The desire to represent the modern Welsh experience as an 'epic' narrative accounts for the over-representation of writers such as Alexander Cordell and Jack Jones. The relationship between history and literature has been the site of heated critical debate for some time, and one wonders whether Alexander Cordell's verbose and overblown depic- tion of Dic Penderyn's last stand tells us anything at all about the historical reality of the Merthyr Rising; it tells us far more about the mid-century literary romanticization of 'Welshness' and Welsh history. The works of Raymond Williams and Lewis Jones, both well represented in this anthology, are far more relevant to history students, for these writers grew up within the historical milieux that their novels depict. Whilst it may be argued that the anthology offers a rather narrow representation of Welsh experiences, we are offered an admirably diverse and wide-ranging portrayal of