Wales: Literatur und Politik, Industrie und Landschaft

Name of traveller

Peter Sager (b. 1945)

Reason for travel

• research for this guide book

Date of travel

undated, ca. 1983

[Dick Jones] was sitting with his dog outside the Pensioners’ Club of Ton Pentre, enjoying the first warm, sunny days of spring. Dick Jones wore a tweed cap, and his dog – like so many here in the valleys – was a terrier. Actually, I only stopped to ask him the way, but he said: ‘I’ve got time, I’ll go with you some o’ the way.’ (Sager 125)

Content

• art:
  • great number of photographs taken by the author
  • great number of paintings, sketches, etchings by various artists
• architecture: detailed descriptions of various architectural features, especially castles, churches, bridges
• clothing: notes on Augusta Hall's (1802-1896) invention of the Welsh costume
• customs:
  
  • National Eisteddfod; International Eisteddfod
  • Royal Welsh Show
  • frequent references to local legends about saints and figures from Welsh history
  • popular culture mostly represented in the form of modern Welsh folk music
• history: detailed coverage of historical events in relation to places visited during the journey
• industry: main focus on history of industry in south Wales with brief references to decline of industry since end of WWII
• language:
  • historical development of Welsh language in relation to English
  • frequent references to Welsh-language activism
• literature:
  • quotes from various literary texts: Mabinogion; works of Dylan Thomas (1914-1953), R. S. Thomas (1913-2000), John Cowper Powys (1872-1963)
  • chapters about the lives and works of Dylan Thomas and John Cowper Powys
• people:
  • chapters about the Ladies of Llangollen, Eleanor Charlotte Butler (1739-1829) and Sarah Ponsonby (1755-1831), Dafydd Iwan (b. 1943), R. S. Thomas
  • references to travel accounts by Carl Gustav Carus (1789-1869), Ida Hahn-Hahn (1805-1880), Fürst von Pückler-Muskau (1785-1871), Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781-1841)
• politics: excursions into development of political relations between Wales and England and state of Wales in the early 1980s
• terrain:
  • modes of travel: car; on foot
  • romanticised landscapes of rural Wales
  • melancholy of industrial towns and industrial ruins
• English translation: Wales. Trans. David Henry Wilson. 4th. rev. edn. London: Pallas Athene, 2002.

Nationality of traveller

German

Language of publication

German; translation: English

Gender of traveller

Male

Type of publication

travel guide; travelogue

Citation

Sager, Peter. Wales: Literatur und Politik, Industrie und Landschaft. 4th. edn. Köln: DuMont, 1992. Print.