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Bibliography

Mary-Ann
Constantine
s. xx–xxi

10 publications between 1995 and 2020 indexed
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Works authored

Constantine, Mary-Ann, and Éva Guillorel, Miracles & murders: an introductory anthology of Breton ballads, British Academy Monographs, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.  
abstract:

This book offers an introduction to one of the most fascinating and little-known song traditions in Europe, the Breton gwerz or ballad. These narrative songs, collected in Western Brittany from the 19th century to the present day, recount a wealth of stories based on tragic local events (shipwrecks, abductions, accidents and murders) or legends (miraculous rescues, penitent souls, strange journeys). Two of the foremost scholars in the field present a selection of thirty-five ballads in the original Breton with English translations and musical notation. An accompanying CD showcases some of the most famous Breton traditional singers, and a comprehensive introductory essay explores the nature of the songs and the contexts in which they have been performed. These are strikingly dramatic, often deeply moving stories of violence, love and grief, which will touch listeners and readers of all interests.

abstract:

This book offers an introduction to one of the most fascinating and little-known song traditions in Europe, the Breton gwerz or ballad. These narrative songs, collected in Western Brittany from the 19th century to the present day, recount a wealth of stories based on tragic local events (shipwrecks, abductions, accidents and murders) or legends (miraculous rescues, penitent souls, strange journeys). Two of the foremost scholars in the field present a selection of thirty-five ballads in the original Breton with English translations and musical notation. An accompanying CD showcases some of the most famous Breton traditional singers, and a comprehensive introductory essay explores the nature of the songs and the contexts in which they have been performed. These are strikingly dramatic, often deeply moving stories of violence, love and grief, which will touch listeners and readers of all interests.

Works edited

Constantine, Mary-Ann, and Nigel Leask (eds), Enlightenment travel and British identities: Thomas Pennant’s tours of Scotland and Wales, London, New York: Anthem Press, 2017.  
abstract:

Thomas Pennant of Downing, Flintshire (1726–1798), naturalist, antiquarian and self-styled ‘Curious Traveller’, published accounts of his pioneering travels in Scotland and Wales to wide acclaim between 1769 and 1784, directly inspiring Dr Johnson, James Boswell and hundreds of subsequent tourists. A keen observer and cataloguer of plants, birds, minerals and animals, Pennant corresponded with a trans-continental network of natural scientists (Linnaeus, Simon Pallas, Joseph Banks, Gilbert White), and was similarly well-connected with leading British antiquarians (William Borlase, Francis Grose, Richard Gough). Frequently cited as witness or authority across a wide range of disciplines, Pennant’s texts have seldom been themselves the focus of critical attention. There is as yet no biography of Pennant, nor any edition of his prolific correspondence with many of the leading minds of the European Enlightenment.

The ‘Tours’ were widely read and much imitated. As annotated copies reveal, readers were far from passive in their responses to the text, and ‘local knowledge’ would occasionally be summoned to challenge or correct them. But Pennant indisputably helped bring about a richer, more complex understanding of the multiple histories and cultures of Britain at a time when ‘Britishness’ was itself a fragile and developing concept. Because the ‘Tours’ drew on a vast network of informants (often incorporating material wholesale), they are, as texts, fascinatingly multi-voiced: many of the period’s political tensions run through them.

This volume of eleven essays seeks to address the comparative neglect of Pennant’s travel writing by bringing together researchers from literary criticism, art history, Celtic studies, archaeology and natural history. Attentive to the visual as well as textual aspects of his topographical enquiries, it demonstrates how much there is to be said about the cross-currents (some pulling in quite contrary directions) in Pennant’s work. In so doing they rehabilitate a neglected aspect of the Enlightenment in relation to questions of British identity, offering a new assessment of an important chapter in the development of domestic travel writing.

abstract:

Thomas Pennant of Downing, Flintshire (1726–1798), naturalist, antiquarian and self-styled ‘Curious Traveller’, published accounts of his pioneering travels in Scotland and Wales to wide acclaim between 1769 and 1784, directly inspiring Dr Johnson, James Boswell and hundreds of subsequent tourists. A keen observer and cataloguer of plants, birds, minerals and animals, Pennant corresponded with a trans-continental network of natural scientists (Linnaeus, Simon Pallas, Joseph Banks, Gilbert White), and was similarly well-connected with leading British antiquarians (William Borlase, Francis Grose, Richard Gough). Frequently cited as witness or authority across a wide range of disciplines, Pennant’s texts have seldom been themselves the focus of critical attention. There is as yet no biography of Pennant, nor any edition of his prolific correspondence with many of the leading minds of the European Enlightenment.

The ‘Tours’ were widely read and much imitated. As annotated copies reveal, readers were far from passive in their responses to the text, and ‘local knowledge’ would occasionally be summoned to challenge or correct them. But Pennant indisputably helped bring about a richer, more complex understanding of the multiple histories and cultures of Britain at a time when ‘Britishness’ was itself a fragile and developing concept. Because the ‘Tours’ drew on a vast network of informants (often incorporating material wholesale), they are, as texts, fascinatingly multi-voiced: many of the period’s political tensions run through them.

This volume of eleven essays seeks to address the comparative neglect of Pennant’s travel writing by bringing together researchers from literary criticism, art history, Celtic studies, archaeology and natural history. Attentive to the visual as well as textual aspects of his topographical enquiries, it demonstrates how much there is to be said about the cross-currents (some pulling in quite contrary directions) in Pennant’s work. In so doing they rehabilitate a neglected aspect of the Enlightenment in relation to questions of British identity, offering a new assessment of an important chapter in the development of domestic travel writing.

Contributions to journals

Constantine, Mary-Ann, “Neither flesh nor fowl: Merlin as bird-man in Breton folk tradition”, Arthurian Literature 21 (2004): 95–114.
Constantine, Mary-Ann, “Prophecy and pastiche in the Breton ballads: Groac'h Ahès and Gwenc'hlan”, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 30 (Winter, 1995): 87–121.

Contributions to edited collections or authored works

Constantine, Mary-Ann, “Celts and Romans on tour: visions of early Britain in eighteenth-century travel literature”, in: Francesca Kaminski-Jones, and Rhys Kaminski-Jones (eds), Celts, Romans, Britons: classical and Celtic influence in the construction of British identities, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2020. 117–140.  
abstract:

This chapter explores the presence of Romans and Britons in the tour literature of late-eighteenth-century Britain. It argues that the deeply ingrained narratives of Classical authors such as Caesar and Tacitus offered many tourists a framework not only for reading the past in the landscape, but also the present, as the recollection of former conflicts in situ stimulated questions of loyalty and cultural diversity within a recently ‘united’ Britain. An examination of a selection of tourist accounts from the 1770s to the early 1800s shows how certain key texts, notably Thomas Pennant’s Tours of Wales and Scotland, set the historical agenda for many decades, and reveals how the power dynamics of that ancient Classical/Celtic conflict could be usefully re-animated in different contemporary political contexts.

abstract:

This chapter explores the presence of Romans and Britons in the tour literature of late-eighteenth-century Britain. It argues that the deeply ingrained narratives of Classical authors such as Caesar and Tacitus offered many tourists a framework not only for reading the past in the landscape, but also the present, as the recollection of former conflicts in situ stimulated questions of loyalty and cultural diversity within a recently ‘united’ Britain. An examination of a selection of tourist accounts from the 1770s to the early 1800s shows how certain key texts, notably Thomas Pennant’s Tours of Wales and Scotland, set the historical agenda for many decades, and reveals how the power dynamics of that ancient Classical/Celtic conflict could be usefully re-animated in different contemporary political contexts.

Constantine, Mary-Ann, “Antiquarianism and enlightenment in the eighteenth Century”, in: Geraint Evans, and Helen Fulton (eds), The Cambridge history of Welsh literature, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. 264–284.
Constantine, Mary-Ann, and Nigel Leask, “Introduction: Thomas Pennant, curious traveller”, in: Mary-Ann Constantine, and Nigel Leask (eds), Enlightenment travel and British identities: Thomas Pennant’s tours of Scotland and Wales, London, New York: Anthem Press, 2017. 1–14.
Constantine, Mary-Ann, and Nigel Leask, “Short bibliography of Thomas Pennant’s tours in Scotland and Wales”, in: Mary-Ann Constantine, and Nigel Leask (eds), Enlightenment travel and British identities: Thomas Pennant’s tours of Scotland and Wales, London, New York: Anthem Press, 2017. 245–248.
Constantine, Mary-Ann, “Heart of darkness: Thomas Pennant and Roman Britain”, in: Mary-Ann Constantine, and Nigel Leask (eds), Enlightenment travel and British identities: Thomas Pennant’s tours of Scotland and Wales, London, New York: Anthem Press, 2017. 65–84.
Constantine, Mary-Ann, “Saints behaving badly: sanctity and transgression in Breton popular culture”, in: Jane Cartwright (ed.), Celtic hagiography and saints’ cults, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2003. 198–215.