Religion, Folk Belief and the Sacred Landscape in Women’s Writing in Wales, 1847 – 1909

Abstract

This thesis examines the representation of religion, folklore and superstition, and the sacred landscape, in twelve novels by six Anglophone women writers in Wales: Anne Beale’s Traits and Stories of the Welsh Peasantry (1849), Eleanor Griffiths’ World Worship (1853), L.M. (Louisa Matilda) Spooner’s Country Landlords (1860), Anne Beale’s Gladys the Reaper (1860) and Country Courtships (1869), Amy Dillwyn’s The Rebecca Rioter (1880), Allen Raine’s By Berwen Banks (1899) and Garthowen (1900), A Maid of Cymru (1901) by sister-authors Mallt and Gwenffrida Williams, and Raine’s A Welsh Witch (1902), Queen of the Rushes (1906) and Where Billows Roll (1909). It uses a feminist historicist perspective to address the neglect of these nineteenth- and early-twentieth century writers, placing them within the socio-historic context in which they were writing. Starting at the time of the publication of the government report on education in Wales known as the ‘Blue Books’ to the publication of Allen Raine’s novel Where Billows Roll (1909), this study covers the period 1847-1909. It is arranged thematically, with each of its five chapters focusing on different aspects of religion, folklore, superstition and the sacred landscape. Chapter 1 focuses on an individualistic aspect of Christianity – how each author represents (and advocates) a withdrawal from the material world in order to concentrate on an individual relationship with God. Chapter 2 examines a specifically Welsh context of Christianity in the relationship between Anglicanism and Nonconformism, and the effect this sometimes-strained relationship has on the women in the novels. Chapter 3 is concerned with the authors’ representation of folklore, especially as a matrilineal tradition, in their novels, whilst Chapter 4 discusses these writers’ representation of superstition. Both Chapters 3 and 4 examine the juxtaposition of folk beliefs and Christianity in the novels, in which these two belief systems are represented as coexistent. Similarly, Chapter 5, which examines the representation of a sacred landscape, also looks at how this landscape is shaped by the inhabitants’ Christian beliefs, which are themselves influenced by folk belief.

This thesis builds on Manon Ceridwen James’ argument that ‘literature is where Welsh women have done their theology’ (James, 2018, p.75). In doing so it shows that women novelists in Wales were part of a literary, theological tradition steeped in the teachings of the church and chapel yet specific to their own circumstances. Without presenting these women as illiberal or conservative, I argue that these writers use the novel form as a reaction against the increasingly secular society in which they lived, using their writing to both explore their own beliefs and to expound, educate, warn and sermonise in a way denied them through traditional avenues such as theological college or the pulpit. In this way, these writers used the novel form in a way specific to their gender, in order to express their voice within a socio-religious context. Charles LaPorte writes that favouring ‘the literary study of figures who are irreligious, anti-religious, or only ambivalently religious [can] skew our sense of a culture’s representative texts’ (LaPorte, 2013, p.279). This thesis demonstrates the importance of belief systems in literary fiction, arguing that without due regard to these influences, the study of Welsh women’s writing in English is incomplete.

Date of Award	2025
Original language	English
Supervisor	Diana Wallace (Supervisor) & Kevin Mills (Supervisor)