R. S. Thomas to Rowan Williams: The Spiritual Imagination in Modern Welsh Poetry

(Paperback)

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A study of spirituality in modern Welsh poetry.

R. S. Thomas and Rowan Williamss great religious poetry continued a well-established Welsh tradition. This book examines spiritual resonance in late-twentieth-century Welsh poetry, including writers as diverse as Saunders Lewis, Vernon Watkins, Waldo Williams, and Bobi Jones. With careful attention to poetic form and style, M. Wynn Thomas draws out each poets particular theological convictions and reveals an abundance of religious reverberations within secular Welsh culture.

Reviews

"The range and depth of the author's knowledge of the literature around these poets, combined with his own perceptive and illuminating insights, is breathtaking. He places them in their particular Welsh historical contexts, and also in a much wider poetic framework, enabling us to see them in new and fresh ways."-- "Barry Morgan, Archbishop of Wales 2003-17"
"The Welsh poetic tradition continues to remind us that our general language today is much more secularised than our inner lives happen to be. With an incomparable knowledge of this tradition, M. Wynn Thomas shows us what happens to belief in contemporary times when it becomes a poem. He also reveals how poems can be vehicles for a religious resonance when doctrinal or liturgical language is faint, fractured or forgotten. I finished reading and immediately started again - this is a glorious celebration of Wales, poetic attention, and the persistent riddles and rumour of God."-- "The Revd Dr Mark Oakley, Dean, St John's College, Cambridge"
"With customary brilliance, M. Wynn Thomas has provided us with a fascinating assessment of 'one of the glories of recent Welsh poetry', namely the Christian content of mid- to late-twentieth-century verse in the two languages of Wales, as expressed by some of its most significant poets. Beginning with Saunders Lewis and concluding with Rowan Williams, Thomas analyses 'a 'Great Tradition' of twentieth century Welsh writing', which, however unfashionable, still speaks powerfully to a secular generation."-- "D. Densil Morgan, Emeritus Professor of Theology, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, Lampeter"

Author Bio

M. Wynn Thomas is professor of English and the Emyr Humphreys professor of Welsh writing in English at Swansea University.