Y werin a’r byddigions: Gwaed yr Uchelwyr a diwylliant llên troad y ganrif (Ancient gentry and the modern nation: Gwaed yr Uchelwyr read in the light of anglophone Welsh fiction of the Cymru Fydd period)

The core argument of the essay is that it would be worth setting Saunders Lewis’ important early play, Gwaed yr Uchelwyr, in the context of several anglophone Welsh novels published at the turn of the nineteenth century that sought to assess the relevance of the culture of the indigenous gentry of Wales to the new nation celebrated by the Cymru Fydd movement. It is argued that familiarity with these texts could assist us to grasp the subtlety and rich ambivalence of the play’s ideological stance.