Resistance in the 'Oppressor's' Tongue: English-language Welsh Writers and Spanish-language Catalan Writers

Abstract

This thesis will demonstrate that the literature of Wales and Catalonia, two small stateless nations that are dominated by larger states with a different majority culture (the United Kingdom and Spain), can be read as resistance literature. However, crucially, it will focus on authors that write in English or Spanish, rather than in Welsh or Catalan. Traditionally Welsh and Catalan literature has been defined as that written in Welsh/Catalan. English and Spanish are often seen as foreign languages, or even as the ‘oppressor’s tongue,’ and texts written in those languages have, until recently, been excluded from the national literature. This thesis will argue, however, that these texts can espouse some type of national resistance, in spite of the language in which they are written.

This thesis will draw on the work of the theorists Barbara Harlow, Benita Parry and E. San Juan Jr., particularly the latter two’s critique of postcolonial studies, and works by anticolonial writer activists like Frantz Fanon and Ngugi wa Thiong’o, in order to establish a resistance literature paradigm. It will also draw on the work of Albert Sánchez Piñol and Daniel G. Williams to differentiate between two types of resistance and consider whether each type is helpful or harmful to the nation. It will then apply this paradigm to the English-language Welsh authors Harri Webb, R. S. Thomas and Rhys Davies, to the Spanish-language Catalan novelist Eduardo Mendoza, and to a Spanish-language text by Albert Sánchez Piñol who has published in both Spanish and Catalan. The thesis will highlight many attributes of resistance literature in their work; the most important and prevalent being: political content, a focus on the message of the text as opposed to its form, an understanding that all struggles against oppression, be it oppression of class, nationality, ethnicity or gender, are part of the same struggle, and an attempt to produce a history of their nation that challenges the account promulgated by the state (the United Kingdom/Spain).

Date of Award	1 Oct 2020
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Bangor University
Sponsors	James Pantyfedwyn Foundation
Supervisor	Andrew Webb (Supervisor) & Eva Bru-Dominguez (Supervisor)