ABSTRACT
The Welsh nation and its language have, as historian Gwyn Williams points out, been confronted time and again with Hamlet's dilemma: whether, and at what cost, to go on being. Wales was not only the closest foreign country to Shakespeare's Warwickshire birthplace but, arguably, always the closest to his imagination. Given such evidence of Shakespeare's abiding concern with the country over the Wye, it is little wonder that we have for some centuries habitually honoured him with a Welsh title, that of Bard of Avon. In a curious way, to speak of Shakespeare as the Bard of Avon is to posit him as the English equivalent of a Welsh original. The patriotic stage Welshmen of English comedy, from Fluellen onwards, makes a habit of seeking out Welsh connections for heroes of every nationality. In the drama of the period, and in Shakespeare's histories in particular, Welsh characters greatly outnumber representatives of England's other neighbour nations.
