The spatial distribution of cultural assets -- The state of poetry -- The structure of space -- Centre and periphery -- Oral versus literate -- Poetry of the north-western periphery -- 'A native ardour of their minds which brooked no master' : poetry in the north of England -- Celticity cumulative and in decline : poetry in the west of Scotland -- Putting a people in its place : Anglo-Welsh poetry 1937-1979 -- Conclusion : Balkanisation : the sound of confusion.
Summary
Does what is true depend on where you are? Or can we speak of a British culture which varies gradually over the 600 miles from one end of the island to the other, with currents gradually mutating and turning into their opposites as they cross such a distance? Any account of the matter must rapidly disclose the fact that where group A proclaims idea X, group B swiftly proclaims X to be untrue. Assimilation and dissimilation are the exuberant flows which make the mill of culture turn. The unbalanced local energies which gave birth to the central horror of possessive individualism, the Empire, an.
