"Excuse the Spelling Which is Probably Wrong": Wordsworth and Tourism's Welsh Languages

Abstract: This essay places poetry from Wordsworth's Welsh tours within the wider context of Romantic tourism's encounter with the Welsh language. Welsh played a key part in Romantic-period tour literature: anxiety and prejudice were characteristic of this contact zone, but it also inspired supra-linguistic communion and a co-created 'tourist Welsh.' Similar themes abound in Wordsworth's poetry, from the sentimental communication of "Simon Lee," to the topographical lacunae and ersatz-Welsh experiments of later Welsh-set sonnets. Wordsworth's 'Welsh' was sometimes a hindrance, an annoyance, or a silence—but despite admitting his grasp of the language was "probably wrong," it catalyzed his Romanticization of Wales.