Introduction

In Writing Wales we are concerned, not only to trace the evolution of Wales' written representation over the period from the Renaissance to Romanticism', but also to chart in these written representations the changing motivations of writers, poets, and playwrights, and the evolving expectations of the patrons, readers, and theatregoers for whom they wrote. Ever since England's acts of union with Wales had opened up the Principality to tourists from England in the mid-sixteenth century, the mountains of Wales had fascinated and appalled the English in equal measure. For an account of English tourism in Wales and across Britain in the period covered by this volume, see Esther Moir, The Discovery of Britain: The English Travellers. Attitudes to the mountainous terrain of Wales can be admiring as well as fearful, as the contrasting views of Jonson and Defoe demonstrate, but can also fuel cultural stereotypes of the Welsh as uncivilized and of the Welsh language as barbarous.