Editing Saunders Lewis (section)

==Early life==
John Saunders Lewis was born into a Welsh-speaking family in [[Wallasey]] in [[the Wirral]], [[Cheshire]], in the [[north-west of England]], on 15 October 1893. He was the second of three sons of Lodwig Lewis (1859–1933), a [[Calvinistic Methodist]] minister, and his wife Mary Margaret (née Thomas, 1862–1900). When he was only six years old, Lewis's mother died and his unmarried maternal "Aunt Ellen" (Ellen Elizabeth Thomas) moved into the [[manse]] and helped to raise him.<ref>Jelle Krol (2020), ''Minority Language Writers in the Wake of World War One: A Case Study of Four European Authors'', Palgrave. Pages 76-87.</ref>

[[Jan Morris]] has described [[Liverpool]] as the closest there is to a [[metropolis]] for the people of [[North Wales]].<ref> Jan Morris (1984), ''The Matter of Wales: Epic Views of a Small Country'', [[Oxford University Press]]. Page 352.</ref> During a television interview with [[Aneirin Talfan Davies]], Lewis later recalled that this was also true during his childhood, as in and around Liverpool, "there were around about a hundred thousand Welsh-speaking [[Welsh people]]... So I was not born in [[Anglosphere|English-speaking]] England... but into a society that was completely Welsh and Welsh-speaking."<ref>Jelle Krol (2020), ''Minority Language Writers in the Wake of World War One: A Case Study of Four European Authors'', Palgrave. Page 87.</ref>

Even though his father was a scholar, "who liked solitude and study", and possessed a very large library of [[Welsh literature]], the only Welsh-language books that Saunders Lewis read while growing up were [[William Morgan (Bible translator)|Bishop Morgan]]'s [[Y Beibl cyssegr-lan|Bible]], the hymnbook, and Sunday school commentaries.<ref>Jelle Krol (2020), ''Minority Language Writers in the Wake of World War One: A Case Study of Four European Authors'', Palgrave. Page 88.</ref>

Lewis attended prestigious English-speaking [[Liscard]] High School for Boys<ref name=DWB>{{cite web|last1=Chapman|first1=T. Robin|title=Lewis, John Saunders|url=https://biography.wales/article/s10-LEWI-SAU-1893|website=[[Dictionary of Welsh Biography]]|publisher=[[National Library of Wales]]|access-date=19 May 2018|date=2014}}</ref> where he was bullied at first, due to the fact that what little English he could speak, "was full of Welsh words." In time, however, Lewis became, "a typical product of the English education system." He became editor of ''The Liscard High School Magazine'' and often visited the Wallasey Public Library, where he read contemporary English literature and, as a teenager, was enthusiastic when he discovered the recent [[mythopoeia|mythopoeic]] poetry and prose reimaginings of [[Irish folklore]] and [[Irish mythology|mythology]] by [[Irish nationalist]]s [[William Butler Yeats]], [[John Millington Synge]], and [[Padraic Colum]].<ref>Jelle Krol (2020), ''Minority Language Writers in the Wake of World War One: A Case Study of Four European Authors'', Palgrave. Page 87-88.</ref>

Lewis later recalled that through these writers, "I came for the first time to understand what patriotism meant and the spirit of the nation meant. And I soon began to think that things like those , which had seized hold of them in Ireland, were the things I should seize hold of in Wales."<ref>Jelle Krol (2020), ''Minority Language Writers in the Wake of World War One: A Case Study of Four European Authors'', Palgrave. Page 88.</ref>

Lewis' earliest attempts at writing poems were in English and were inspired by [[William Wordsworth]], [[Walter Pater]], [[John Wesley]] and the [[King James Bible]].<ref>Jelle Krol (2020), ''Minority Language Writers in the Wake of World War One: A Case Study of Four European Authors'', Palgrave. Page 88.</ref>