R. S. Thomas

Brown Tony

Description

At his death in 2000, R. S. Thomas was widely considered to be one of the major poets of the English-speaking world, having been nominated for the Nobel prize for Literature. With Dylan Thomas, R. S. Thomas is probably Wales's best-known poet internationally.Tony Brown provides an introduction to R. S. Thomas's life and work, as well as new perspectives and insights for those already familiar with the poetry. His approach is broadly chronological, interweaving life and work in order to evaluate Thomas's poetic achievement. In addition to presenting a full discussion of Thomas's poetry, and its movements over time between personal, spiritual and political concerns, Tony Brown also examines Thomas's contribution to the culture of Wales, not just in his writing but also his political interventions and activism on behalf of Welsh language and culture.

Sujets

• Literary Criticism
• Poetry

Informations

• Publié par: University of Wales Press
• Date de parution: 15 septembre 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780708322840
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

Writers of Wales

R. S.Thomas

Tony Brown

University of Wales Press

Writers of Wales

R. S.Thomas

Editors: Meic Stephens R. Brinley Jones

Advisory board: Jane Aaron Dafydd Johnston

Writers of Wales

R. S.Thomas

Tony Brown

University of Wales Press Cardiff 2006

© Tony Brown, 2006

Reprinted 2009

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-0-7083-1800-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without clearance from the University of Wales Press, 10 Columbus Walk, Brigantine Place, Cardiff, CF10 4UP. Website: www.uwp.co.uk

The right of Tony Brown to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Printed in Wales by Dinefwr Press, Llandybïewww.dinefwrpress.co.uk

For Nancy, Sara and Alys

There was a hope he was outside of, with no-one to ask him in [. . . ]

R. S. Thomas,The Echoes Return Slow

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

Chapter I From Holyhead to Manafon

Chapter II Eglwys-fach

Chapter III Aberdaron

Chapter IV Retirement, Protest and Unity

Notes

Select Bibliography

Index

Illustrations between pages 118–119

C

o

ntents

viii

x

1

40

70

90

119

127

131

Acknowledgements

Conversations, over numerous years, about R. S. Thomas and his work, with fellow scholars, undergraduate and postgraduate students, and visitors to the R. S. Thomas Study Centre at University of Wales, Bangor, mean that my debts are many and varied. But in particular I am grateful for discussion in recent years with my Co-director at the Centre, Dr Jason Walford Davies, and with my friend and colleague, Professor M. Wynn Thomas (University of Wales Swansea), who is also the poet’s literary executor. My thinking about Thomas’s personality and his references to his own insecurity of identity has been focussed by conversation with Dr Barbara Prys-Williams, and my indebtedness to her work onThe Echoes Return Slowwill be evident in the text. Discussion with postgraduate students working in the field is perhaps the best possible way of keeping one’s ideas sharp and thinking further; I have been fortunate to have had working with me at the Centre at Bangor some especially able students of R. S. Thomas’s writing: Dr Fflur Dafydd, Daniel Westover and Sam Perry (University of Leicester). The poet’s son, Mr Gwydion Thomas has been unfailingly supportive and I am especially grateful to him for permission to publish several photographs of his father, as well as permission to quote extensively from R. S. Thomas’s writing and broadcasts. Dr T. Robin Chapman generously drew my attention to relevant material during his own research on Islwyn Ffowc Elis. I am grateful to colleagues at the University of Wales Press, especially Sarah Lewis, for their expertise – and for their patience in the over-long gestation of the present work. The series editor, Professor Meic Stephens, made many helpful suggestions on the text and saved me from a

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