Bardic Circles: National, Regional and Personal Identity in the Bardic Vision of Iolo Morganwg

Bardism was the idiosyncratic vision of the Romantic forger Iolo Morganwg—a radical Druid revival that asserted Welsh identity and downplayed the influence of Christianity. It furnished the Welsh nation with a pantheon of heroes; asserted liberty, equality, freedom of speech, and opposition to war; and repudiated the tired contemporary stereotype of the barbarous Celt. Bardic Circles discusses the national, religious, and personal identities made explicit in Bardism and its relation to Iolo’s self-definition, Romantic forgeries, and contemporary Welsh self-image.