Across all the creative disciplines, questions of style and the aesthetics of landscape and content have been set against social and cultural implications, representing this awe inspiring area of rural Wales across eras of urbanisation, industrialisation and now digitalisation.

Ancient Welsh traditions of folk singing and poetry have remained strong in Eryri since the days when bards entertained at the Princes’ courts. Modern versions include events like the National Eisteddfod and locally organised festivals such as the Sesiwn Fawr in Dolgellau where Welsh and Celtic bands perform and share with a worldwide audience. 

The views from our summits inspired numerous English Romantic poets of the 18th and 19th centuries, notably Shelley and Wordsworth. Of the many poets whose work reflects this powerful landscape, the best-known within Wales is Hedd Wyn, the shepherd-poet killed at Pilckem Ridge in 1917 on the first day of the Battle of Passchendaele, whilst serving with the Royal Welsh Fusiliers. He is commemorated in a film about his life, which received an Oscar-nomination in 1996 and his childhood home at Yr Ysgwrn near Trawsfynydd is also open to the public. 

Equally, modern poets such as the Chief Bard, Myrddin ap Dafydd, have been influenced by Eryri’s impressive topography. In Myrddin’s words: “I wonder regularly in the Park, in all seasons and in all types of weather. Beauty and history interweave through the scenery and it is not under blue skies alone that Snowdonia’s marvels are to be discovered. Traces of human activity and society, scraping a living and survival are a huge part of the appeal for me.”