MACMILLAN Minority Language Writers in the Wake of World War One: A Case Study of Four European Authors (Palgrave Studies in Minority Languages and Communities)

This book presents a comparative literary study of the works of four writers working in European minority languages - Frisian, Welsh, Scots and Breton.  The author examines the different strategies employed by the four writers to create distinctive literary fields for their languages in the interwar era when self-determination had been promised to national minorities, finding that each had to make some degree of a step backwards into the past to enable them to make a leap forward. The book also discusses the problems resulting from this oscillation between traditionalism and modernism, drawing on concepts such as Pascale Casanova's ' littératures combatives' to make sense of these minority languages and communities within the wider European context. This study will be of interest to students and scholars of minority languages - particularly the four explored here - as well as twentieth-century and comparative literature, multilingualism, and language policy.  Review “This is a revelatory work exploring cultural relativities through four major authors, poets, playwrights, and novelists. Each in their national context supersedes any sense of the ‘peripheral’ and is centred in a shared historical moment, between the First and Second World Wars. Four very different figures are the focus of close literary study, contextually illuminating and explicating their individual characters and techniques. Jelle Krol is sensitive to the differences between the writers and their cultures, but equally able to build a larger argument in the context of international power relations and the values of literature. The book is a wide-ranging literary investigation with a firmly grounded sense of humanity, endorsing diversity as the one thing that unites cultural appreciation and a human sense of value. In this understanding, it is the worlds of literature and culture that generate a truly viable international diplomacy.” (Alan Riach, University of Glasgow, UK) From the Back Cover This book presents a comparative literary study of the works of four writers working in European minority languages - Frisian, Welsh, Scots and Breton.  The author examines the different strategies employed by the four writers to create distinctive literary fields for their languages in the interwar era when self-determination had been promised to national minorities, finding that each had to make some degree of a step backwards into the past to enable them to make a leap forward. The book also discusses the problems resulting from this oscillation between traditionalism and modernism, drawing on concepts such as Pascale Casanova's ' littératures combatives' to make sense of these minority languages and communities within the wider European context. This study will be of interest to students and scholars of minority languages - particularly the four explored here - as well as twentieth-century and comparative literature, multilingualism, and language policy.  Jelle Krol is a Subject Librarian and Specialist at Tresoar, the Frisian Literary and Historical Centre in Leeuwarden, The Netherlands. He received his PhD in 2018 from the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. About the Author Jelle Krol is a Subject Librarian and Specialist at Tresoar, the Frisian Literary and Historical Centre in Leeuwarden, The Netherlands. He received his PhD in 2018 from the University of Groningen, The Netherlands.