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Distributed for University of Wales Press

A Rattleskull Genius

The Many Faces of Iolo Morganwg

An industrious academic and charmingly eccentric Romantic poet and forger, Iolo Morganwg (1747-1846) left behind a floor-to-ceiling stack of unpublished manuscripts in his small Welsh cottage. A Rattleskull Genius, based on that trove of unpublished material now held at the National Library of Wales, provides both a celebration and a critical reassessment of the author and his contributions to Welsh cultural tradition.


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Table of Contents

List of Figures
List of Contributors
Preface
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
 
1.   On the Trail of a ’Rattleskull Genius’: Introduction
      Geraint H. Jenkins
 
I   Contexts
2.  Iolo Morganwg and the Welsh Cultural Background
     Branwen Jarvis
 
3.  ’The Manuscripts’: The Culture and Politics of Forgery in Central Europe
     R.J.W. Evans
 
II   The Bard
4.  Iolo Morganwg and Strict-Metre Welsh Poetry
     Ceri W. Lewis
 
5.  A Multitude of Voices: The Free-Metre Poetry of Iolo Morganwg
     Huw Meirion Edwards
 
6.  ’This Wildernessed Business of Publication’: The Making of Poems, Lyric and Pastoral (1794)
     Mary-Ann Constantine
 
7.  ’At Defiance’: Iolo, Godwin, Coleridge, Wordsworth
     Damian Walford Davies
 
8.  ’Images of Truth New Born’: Iolo, William Blake and the Literary Radicalism of the 1790s
     Jon Mee
 
III  Iolo’s Preoccupations
9.  Iolo Morganwg: Stonecutter, Builder, and Antiquary
     Richard Suggett
 
10. Iolo Morganwg and the Welsh Rural Landscape
     David Ceri Jones
 
11. Iolo Morganwg and Welsh Historical Traditions
     Prys Morgan
 
12. The Unitarian Firebrand, the Cambrian Society and the Eisteddfod
      Geraint H. Jenkins
 
13. ’Uncontaminated with Human Gore’? Iolo Morganwg, Slavery and the Jamaican Inheritance
      Andrew Davies
 
14. Iolo Morganwg and the Dialects of Welsh
      Richard Crowe
 
15. Iolo Morganwg and Traditional Music
      Daniel Huws
 
IV  Iolo’s Friends and Enemies
16. Women and Gender in the Private and Social Relaitonships of Iolo Morganwg
      Cathryn A. Charnell-White
 
17. The ’Cultivated Understanding’ and Chaotic Genius of David Samwell
     Martin Fitzpatrick
 
18. Forgery and Patronage: Iolo Morganwg and Owain Myfyr
      Geraint Phillips
 
19. ’Mad Ned’ and the ’Smatter-Dasher’: Iolo Morganwg and Edward ’Celtic’ Davies
      Moira Dearnley
 
20. An Uneasy Partnership: Iolo Morganwg and William Owen Pughe
      Glenda Carr
 
21. ’The Age of Restitution’: Taliesin ab Iolo and the Reception of Iolo Morganwg
      Brynley F. Roberts
 
22. Myfyr Morganwg and the Rocking-Stone Gorsedd
      Huw Walters
 
Index

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