bring on the SUNSHINE

I woke up this morning to the sunshine in my window (YAY) and had the immediate urge to run down to the beach to soak it up like it may never come back. This whole week has been like that-- and it has been amazing. I hadn't even realized how much I had been missing my daily doses of Vitamin D! I did have to slow myself down though.. its beginning to be time to start thinking about research and essay writing..

A short pep-talk with myself about investing the time for research and writing now so that I can enjoy the sun down the road as it gets nicer and keeps warming up, and I ended up investing 3 of my morning hours to Iolo Morganwg, a Welsh polymath, collector and forger. I am writing one of my four essays on Morganwg and his influence on Welsh history and culture.

I had no idea who he was when I started, and he has since captivated my interests. He's an interesting chap... born and raised in Wales, incredibly gifted... he started off as a antiguarian, collecting mainly the poetry of the Welsh bards. He was a poet himself, so as part of his studies, he began transcribing pieces of work. Inspired by slightly misguided, but passionate patriotism and impulsiveness (plus a slight opium addiction) he began "transcribing" pieces of work based on his own theories of 'Bardism'.

Basically, he wanted people to respect the people of Wales and Welsh culture so badly that he was mixing up genuine history and his own material to accentuate how enlightened the people of Wales were. For instance, during the latter half of the 1700s, when Iolo Morganwg was alive, the dominate theory was the literacy indicated intellect. Iolo made up a historical Welsh alphabet that he 'discovered' to prove that the Welsh were among the pioneers of literacy in Britain! A lot of his work romanticised and highlighted the Welsh people and culture.

His transcriptions and forgeries were so accurate that they were not found out until after his death, and by then had left a profound positive impact on Welsh nationalism. He's recognized not only as one of the most infamous forgers in European history, but also one of the strongest contributors to the 18th century renaissance, upholding the reputation that Wales has as a civil nation and being the first to suggest that the people of Wales need their own national institutions: libraries, museums, etc. Fascinating.

Hope all is well back home! Happy Friday!