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352 pages

English

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The study places the work of a major religious poet of the late twentieth century in a number of striking new perspectives that allow him to be viewed for the first time as an 'alternative' war poet, a conscience-stricken pacifist, a jealously opportunistic student of art, and an experimental biographer of the modern soul. Published to mark the centenary of the ‘ogre of Wales’, this volume deals with the idées fixes that serially possessed the fiercely intense imagination of R. S. Thomas: Iago Prytherch, Wales, his family and, of course, a vexingly elusive deity. Here, these familiar obsessions are set in several unusual contexts that bring Thomas’s poetry into startling new relief. The war poetry is considered alongside the poet’s early relationship to the English topographical tradition; comparisons with Borges and Levertov underline the international dimensions of the poetry’s concerns; the intriguing ‘secret code’ of some of Thomas’s Welsh-language references is cracked; and his painting-poems (including several hitherto unpublished) are brought centre-stage from the peripheries to which they have been routinely relegated.
Introduction 1 War Poet 2 For Wales See Landscape 3 The disappearing clergyman 4 Son of Saunders 5 Family Matters 6 The leper of Abercuawg 7 Irony in the soul: R. (S)ocrates Thomas 8 Time's Changeling 9 The Fantastic Side of God 10 Transatlantic Relations 11 The Fast-Dipping Brush 12 The brush's piety

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Literary Criticism

Poetry

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Publié par	University of Wales Press
Date de parution	15 février 2013
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780708326619
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0650€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

R. S. Thomas
Serial Obsessive
M. Wynn Thomas
University of Wales Press
Royal cover template.indd 1 21/01/2013 11:37:42Royal cover template.indd 2 21/01/2013 11:37:42R. S. Thomas
000 Prelims 2013_1_9.indd 1 1/9/2013 6:05:49 PM000 Prelims 2013_1_9.indd 2 1/9/2013 6:05:49 PMR. S. Thomas
Serial Obsessive
M. Wynn Thomas
University of Wales Press
Cardiff
2013
000 Prelims 2013_1_9.indd 3 1/9/2013 6:05:49 PM© M. Wynn Thomas, 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any material
form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic
means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of
this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner
except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988. Applications for the copyright owner’s written permission
to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the
University of Wales Press, 10 Columbus Walk, Brigantine Place, Cardiff
CF10 4UP.
www.uwp.co.uk
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-0-7083-2570-4
e-ISBN 978-0-7083-2613-8
The right of M. Wynn Thomas to be identifed as author of this work has
been asserted in accordance with sections 77, 78 and 79 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Typeset in Wales by Eira Fenn Gaunt, Cardiff
Printed by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham
000 Prelims 2013_1_9.indd 4 1/9/2013 6:05:49 PMI fy annwyl wraig
Ac er cof am ein hen gyfaill ni’n dau,
Hywel Teif Edwards (1934–2010)
000 Prelims 2013_1_9.indd 5 1/9/2013 6:05:49 PM000 Prelims 2013_1_9.indd 6 1/9/2013 6:05:49 PMContents
Acknowledgements ix
Illustrationsxi
Abbreviationsxii
Introduction1
1 War Poet 13
2 For Wales, See Landscape 37
3 The Disappearing Clergyman 67
4 Son of Saunders 93
5 Family Matters 117
6 The Leper of Abercuawg 147
7 Irony in the Soul: R. S.(ocrates) Thomas 171
8 ‘Time’s Changeling’ 193
9 ‘The fantastic side of God’ 219
000 Prelims 2013_1_9.indd 7 1/9/2013 6:05:49 PMContents
10 Transatlantic Relations 241
11 ‘The fast dipping brush’ 263
12 ‘The brush’s piety’ 293
Index 321
000 Prelims 2013_1_9.indd 8 1/9/2013 6:05:49 PMaCknowledgements
Permission has very kindly been granted by Gwydion and Rhodri Thomas
to publish extracts from R. S. Thomas’s published works, and the R. S.
Thomas Centre at Bangor University has generously allowed publication
of some unpublished materials.
Several parts of this book have appeared in present or previous form
elsewhere. I am grateful to those associated with the following for
permission to mine those sources: The New Welsh Review; Wales at War,
Critical Essays on Literature and Art; Welsh Writing in English, A Yearbook
of Critical Essays; Internal Difference, Literature in Twentieth-Century Wales;
Miraculous Simplicity, Essays on R. S. Thomas; Cawr i’w Genedl, Cyfrol i
gyfarch Hywel Teif Edwards; Agenda; Echoes to the Amen, Essays after R. S.
Thomas; Renascence, New Perspectives in Scholarship and Criticism; Poems
of Earth, Poems and Essays in Honour of Jeremy Hooker.
Permissions to include entirely or in part from the following works
have been kindly granted: The Collected Poems 1945–1990 by R. S. Thomas,
by permission of The Orion Publishing Group, London; ‘A Flickering
Mind’, ‘Joy’, ‘Mysterious Disappearance of May’s Past Perfect’ and
‘Thinking About Paul Celan’ by Denise Levertov, from New Selected
Poems (Blood axe Books, 2003); ‘Infant Sorrow’ by William Blake, from
William Blake: Selected Poetry and Prose, edited by David Punter
(Routledge, 1988); ‘Michael’ by William Wordsworth, from William Wordsworth:
Selected Poetry and Prose, edited by Philip Hobsbaum (Routledge, 1989);
‘No Second Troy’ by W. B. Yeats, by permission of A. P. Watt Ltd on
behalf of Gráinne Yeats; ‘On the Shore’ by R. S. Thomas, from The Bread
of Truth (1968), by permission of Kunjana Thomas; ‘Psalm Fragments
(Schnittke String Trio)’ by Denise Levertov, from The Stream and the
Sapphire, © 1997 by Denise Levertov, reprinted by permission of New
000 Prelims 2013_1_9.indd 9 1/9/2013 6:05:49 PMAcknowledgements
Directions Publish ing Corp.; ‘Reaping’ by Joseph P. Clancy,
TwentiethCentury Welsh Poems (Gomer Press, 1982) from the original Welsh poem
‘Medi’ by Dic Jones, Cerddi Dic yr Hendre (Gomer Press, 2010); ‘Reluctance’,
from The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Latham,
published by Jonathan Cape, reprinted by permission of The Random
House Group Limited; ‘Some Notes on Organic Form’ by Denise Levertov,
from New and Selected Essays, © 1973 by Denise Levertov, reprinted by
permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.
Over a quarter of a century, I have published more than a dozen books
with the University of Wales Press, and am more appreciative than ever
of the exceptional services they have rendered me. My sincerest thanks
go to Sarah Lewis, Dafydd Jones, Siân Chapman, Charlotte Austin, Steven
Goundrey, Eira Fenn Gaunt, Janet Davies and all the other members of
a team that, despite the outrageous challenges and diffculties of recent
times, have remained devoted to the highest standards of professional
perform ance.
The dedication of this book to my wife and recently departed friend
Hywel Teif Edwards is an inadequate return for all their love, affection
and support. And included equally in the embrace of my very warmest
thanks are those others dearest to me, Elin, Bob, and of course little Joseph.
Mae’r llyfr hwn, gyda chariad mawr, yn gyfwynedig ichi i gyd.
x
000 Prelims 2013_1_9.indd 10 1/9/2013 6:05:49 PMlIst oF IllUstRatIons
Between pages 146 and 147
1. Richard Hilder, Cottages at Litlington (n.d.). Donated by the Pilgrim
Trust. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
2. Mildred Eldridge, Addoldy-y-Bedyddwyr (n.d.). © Victoria and Albert
Museum, London.
3. Mildred Eldridge, Maes yr Onnen, reproduced in R. S. Thomas,
Selected Prose (1982). © Kunjana Thomas 2001.
4. Mildred Eldridge, Soar-y-Mynydd, repr
Selected Prose
5. Mildred Eldridge, Peat Cutting, Cefn Coch (n.d.). © Victoria and
Albert Museum, London.
6. Kenneth Rowntree, Conway Castle and Coracle (n.d.). © Victoria and
7. Mildred Eldridge, drawing of R. S. Thomas (n.d.). Private collection.
8. Mildr
9. Edgar Degas, Portrait of a Young Woman, 1867. Musée d’Orsay, Paris;
Giraudon; The Bridgman Art Library.
10. Mademoiselle Marie Dihau at the piano, oil on canvas,
c.1869–72. Musée d’Orsay, Paris; Giraudon; The Bridgman Art
Library.
11. Edgar Degas, The Opera Orchestra, oil on canvas, c.1870. Musée
d’Orsay, Paris; Giraudon; The Bridgman Art Library.
12. Ben Shahn, Father and Child, painting (n.d.).
13. Toyen, Hlas Lesa I, painting (n.d.).
14. Iwan Bala, Land
15. Wil Rowlands, At the End, painting (n.d.).
16. Christine Kinsey, Yr Adwy 1, pencil and charcoal on paper (n.d.).
000 Prelims 2013_1_9.indd 11 1/9/2013 6:05:49 PMaBBReVIatIons
CP Collected Poems, 1945–1990 (Guernsey: Phoenix/Orion, 2000)
CLP Collected Later Poems, 1988–2000 (Tarset: Bloodaxe, 2004)
000 Prelims 2013_1_9.indd 12 1/9/2013 6:05:49 PMBut this one, had he ever been anything but solitary?
R. S. Thomas, The Echoes Return Slow

000 Prelims 2013_1_9.indd 13 1/9/2013 6:05:49 PM000 Prelims 2013_1_9.indd 14 1/9/2013 6:05:49 PMIntroduction
There are deaths that have affected the very weather of the Welsh mind,
and for two days after R. S. Thomas’s passing in September 2000, the
country was swept by storms. What mattered to many, towards the end
of his long life, was that he was still there, magnifcently cussed, wilfully
bloody-minded, incorrigibly anachronistic. In a world glib with yes-men,
his was a voice ever ready to say No! in thunder. And, as a connoisseur
of irony, he would have relished the moment at his funeral when, during
the still moment of prayer, the jets he had so often cursed screeched
unheeding overhead, inscribing their own hostile obituary in the skies of
Ll}n. As for the cremation that followed, it was perfectly suited to one
who, contrary to public perception, was never a grave man. ‘Poor old
Arnold,’ one of the Victorian sage’s friends is reported to have commented
on hearing of the great man’s passing: ‘he won’t like God.’ It’s easy to
understand why the Almighty put off calling R. S. Thomas home for as
long as possible: He knew He would face cross-examination to all eternity.
Nor did the ageing Thomas lose his notorious capacity to shock. When I
interviewed him a couple of years before his death, he startled his
respectable audience by saying that, were he persuaded that drugs would
improve his performance as a poet, he would not scruple to take them.
That remark underlined how very seriously he took his vocation – not
only as a priest, but as a poet. But how good a poet was he? A century
00 Introduction 2013_1_10.indd 1 1/10/2013 1:52:29 PMSerial Obsessive
after his birth, but a mere dozen years after his death, it is far, far too
early to tell. Quiet consensus – eloquent in its neglect of him – currently
murmurs ‘not very’: a marginal fgure at best, minor in his achievements,
limited in vision, briefy interesting in his early Iago Prytherch years. I
belong to the dissenting minority, but have to concede a special, and
probably distorting, interest. I deeply sympathise with both his political
and his religious convictions, while by no means fully subscribing to
either. For me he remains the ‘Solzhenitsyn of Wales’, a necessary
extremist, an irritating troubler of conscience, a fully signed up member of the
awkward squad. He is a true ‘Son of Saunders’, as explained in one of
the chapters that follow. I also particularly value those ‘laboratories of
the spirit’, his late, religious poems, each attenuated text isolated on its
page like some gaunt Giacometti fgure imaging the modern co