Abstract
For Paul Gilroy, Henry Louis Gates Jr. and others, Raymond Williams embraced notions of cultural authenticity and ethnic continuity compatible with the racisms of the Right. This influential critique is based on a fundamental misreading of Williams’ position. This text explores notions of identity in Williams’ criticism and novels to offer an alternative reading. Although often dismissed as a white, male, English critic, and a member of the dominant sector within British society, Williams was in fact Welsh and meditated throughout his life on the meaning of that identity. He never endorsed forms of British superiority and exceptionalism, since he noted explicitly in Politics and Letters (1979) that he never considered himself to be British. Furthermore, Williams consistently rejected racial and blood-based forms of identity and emphasized how his marginal formation on the Wales-England border led to an awareness of the always evolving and historically contingent nature of communal identification.
Keywords:
Wales; Great Britain; Race; Nationalism; Raymond Williams; New Left