Nicholas Williams – författare

In 2000, a sixteenth-century manuscript containing a copy of a previously unknown play in Middle Cornish, probably composed in the second half of the fifteenth century, was discovered among papers bequeathed to the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth.This eagerly awaited edition of the play, published in association with the National Library of Wales, offers a conservatively edited text with a facing-page translation, and a reproduction of the original text at the foot of the page – vital for comparative purposes. Also included are a complete vocabulary, detailed linguistic notes, and a thorough introduction dealing with the language of the play, the hagiographic background of the St Kea material and the origins of other parts in the work of Geoffrey of Monmouth.The theme of the play is the contention between St Kea, patron of Kea parish in Cornwall, and Teudar, a local tyrant. This is combined with a long section dealing with the dispute over tribute payments between King Arthur and the Emperor Lucius Hiberius; Queen Guinevere’s adultery with Arthur’s nephew Modred; the latter’s invitation to Cheldric and his Saxon hordes to come to Britain to assist him in his conflict with his uncle; and Arthur’s battle with Modred.Winner of the 2008 Holyer An Gof Award for Cornish language publications.

Essay from the year 2005 in the subject Politics - Topic: Peace and Conflict, Security, grade: 2,0, University of Wales, Aberystwyth (International Politics Department), course: September 11, International Terrorism and the Middle East, language: English, abstract: Does poverty cause terrorism? A simple equation which is frequently evoked in the media and public discourse on terrorism, but as has been shown quite frequently, terrorists tend to come from educated and middle-class backgrounds. So what does it take to make a terrorist? There is - as will hardly surprise anyone - no clear cut, simple answer, but this essay aims at providing an overview and further questions.

Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Literature, Works, grade: 1,3, University of Heidelberg (Anglistisches Seminar), course: PS II Literaturwissenschaft - Shaws Frühe Dramen, language: English, abstract: This essay shall aim at portraying Shaw’s Fabian thought and morality in his early plays, i.e. Widowers’ Houses, Arms and the Man, and The Devil’s Disciple. Such a task automatically renders the essay no more than an attempt at finding traces, for there are no socialists in the plays mentioned. Instead, socialist thought is conveyed implicitly, i.e. by means of the plot, by method of showing, or by confronting a Victorian theatre audience with realities they would only too well like to ignore. Widower’s Houses is a good case in point: it is highly unlikely any tenants living in the sort of substandard accommodation portrayed in the play could afford a night out in Covent Garden, and it is equally unlikely the theatre-going audience would ever bother to visit them in “their” rundown houses. Consequently, Shaw forced the reality upon the audience and explicitly tried to use drama as a means of propaganda (Grene: 1987: 15 and 3). However, here one could critically add that Shaw – like most Fabians – had as little contact with the working class as those he criticised for the same reasons (Ballay 1980: 237). I shall focus on Widowers’ Houses, Arms and the Man, and The Devil’s Disciple, for reasons I will explain in the conclusion. The essay follows a hypothesis, which is as written above: Shaw forced upon his audience realities they would like to ignore, and he wished to radicalise his audience (Gahan: 13). The second assumption this essay follows is that morality is as much part of Fabianism as politics are. In his economic and political writings, Shaw made a strong connection between economics and morality (Griffith: 29f.). His opposition to capitalism rooted very much in the fact that he rejected it morally. Hence, according to Fabian logic, the struggle for a better (i.e. socialist) society is hardly to be separated from the question of individual conduct, at least to those who can afford it. The verbal claims made by Trench and Sartorius that they would like to change society for the better but find their hands bound collide with Richard in “The Devil’s Disciple”, who claims to follow the devil but immunises himself from attack by immaculate behaviour. Again, Shaw forced a reality upon his audience they might not have witnessed elsewhere, and effectively used the stage for propagandistic purposes, even though they might not be quite as obvious as with other political writers such as Brecht.

Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject History of Europe - Middle Ages, Early Modern Age, grade: 1,5, University of Wales, Aberystwyth (History Department), course: Politics and Political Culture in Norman and Angevin England, language: English, abstract: The problems arising from both the term “politics” and the term “ritual” is that they are essentially modern concepts, at least in the sense in which we use them today. Consequently, anything said about the involvement and use of ritual in the realm of politics, a word here used in a broad sense of meaning, should be read with extreme caution. Politics, on a provisional definition for the purpose of this essay, is therefore to be understood as the means and mechanism through which decisions concerning the community are taken, exercised, and communicated. A ritual, on the other hand, is harder to define, and all attempts to do so would not pass unchallenged. For the purpose of this essay it will be understood as an often recurring proceeding, with symbolic meaning attached to its outer appearance. Borrowing from linguistics, but without engaging in that discipline’s debate between structuralists and followers of Noam Chomsky’s generative grammar, the notion of Ferdinand de Saussure’s sign theory may help: a ritual itself will in this essay be understood as a sign, the realization of which is a signifier (signifiant), and the meaning of which is the signified (signifié). In other words, ritual here is understood as following similar patterns as language. Letters are of no use to an illiterate, as the shapes of letters mean nothing to him, nor does a ritual for someone unfamiliar with any given society’s customs and values. The meaning (signified) has a dialectic connection with its realized counterpart, the performance of ritual (or, in Saussure’s field, speech). The ritual itself is thus an abstract concept standing above both as the sign, which is, in turn, hollow if unperformed and to the historian only of use once put into practice and filled with meaning. To round the picture off though, it should be stated here that the analogy is a model and that there are strict limits to it, as will be explained in the conclusion. The word will be used as signifying a concept; a concept which is being contested, and which therefore stands in italics. After this interdisciplinary introduction with the help of linguistics, this essay will try and outline the use of ritual in politics through various sources and secondary materials, sketching rather than answering the question of whether the concept of ritual has been exaggerated in its appliance to medieval politics.