S1ylistic Destinations: the Prosodies of R.S
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S1YLISTIC DESTINATIONS: THE PROSODIES OF R. S. THOMAS, 1936-2000 Daniel Kirk Westover In fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the University of Wales School of English Bangor University 2008 Summary Welsh poet R. S. Thomas (1913-2000), who published for over six decades, evolved from a sub-Georgian imitator in the 1930s to one of Britain's most stylistically-innovative poets in the latter part of the century. This thesis traces Thomas's developmental journey by means of close reading, analyzing his various prosodies, including metrical, accentual, linear, and visual. R. S. Thomas's prosodies were largely an extension of his emotional interiors, but there is also in his work an integral relationship between style and place; the environment in which he wrote poems was consistently reflected in the rhythm, language, and structure of the poetry itself. In order to shed light on the workings of Thomas's prosodies, this thesis makes use of poetic theory and examines Thomas's responses to key influences: the Bible; writings in theology and popular science; and the literary works of Irish, American, Welsh, and English writers. Contents Acknowledgments IV Declaration and Statements v Abbreviations vi Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Origins of a Style (1936-1943) 7 Chapter 2: A Style Emerging (1943-1955) 58 Chapter 3: A Style Defmed (1955-1972) 115 Chapter 4: A Style Developed (1972-1988) 202 Chapter 5: A Style (Un)Refined (1988-2000) 254 Conclusion 286 Bibliography 288 Acknowledgments I am indebted to my supervisor Tony Brown for his remarkable depth of patience, kindness, time, advice, and wisdom, all of which he offered me even before I was his student. Funding from the Overseas Research Student Awards Scheme (ORSAS) and an International Scholarship from Bangor University made my research possible. The R. S. Thomas Study Centre at Bangor gave me both work space and access to a vast collection of research material. I express thanks to my friend John Wood, who introduced me to R. S. Thomas's work, and who gave me my first lessons in prosody; and to the late Leslie Norris, for teaching me how to listen. In ways incalculable I am indebted to my family, by birth and by marriage, for unwavering love and support. Above all, I am forever grateful to Mary, who continues to teach me passion, friendship, and joy; and to Eden, who teaches me to live with my heart outside my body. Abbreviations SF The Stones of the Field (1946) AL An Acre ofLand (1952) SYT Song at the Year's Turning (1955) PS Poetryfor Supper (1958) T Tares (1961) BT The Bread of Truth (1963) P Pieta (1966) NBF Not That He Brought Flowers (1968) YO Young and Old (1972) LS Laboratories of the Spirit (1975) WI The W'9' of It (1977) F Frequencies (1978) BHN Between Here and Now (1981) LP Later Poems (1983) IT Ingrowing Thoughts (1985) EA Experimenting with an Amen (1986) WA Welsh Airs (1987) ER} The Echoes Return Slow (1988) C Counterpoint (1990) MHT Mass for Hard Times (1992) NIP No Truce With the Furies (1995) R Residues, ed. M. Wynn Thomas (2002) A Autobiographies, trans. Jason Walford Davies (1997) SP RS. Thomas: Selected Prose, ed. Sandra Anstey (rev. ed., 1995) Introduction In his introduction to Modernism: A Guide to Criticism (2007), Michael Whitworth discusses the strengths and weaknesses of a New Critical approach to poetry. More specifically, he observes that the New Criticism, with its emphasis on form and technique, "provides powerful tools for interpretive criticism" but is neglectful of "history, politics, and culture". While it is therefore helpful at the textual level, New Criticism "excludes any analysis of the cultural conditions which make it possible for the text to exist".' One readily acknowledges the limitations of a text-in-a-vacuum approach to poetry criticism, but one is nevertheless quick to point out another cricical extreme, one that is in fact much more common: a propensity to emphasize all things extra-textual, especially the "history, politics, and culture" surrounding both poet and poetry (in that order). In this brand of criticism, the poem is always subordinate to an idea, a theme, a socio-political viewpoint, a historical setting, or the biography of the poet. In other words, the poetry itself is ultimately marginalized. Perhaps understandably, given the cultural position which R. S. Thomas consciously took in Wales, a great deal of criticism on his work has been of this variety. Such criticism has done much to create a contextual climate for his poetry, but it has also, with few exceptions, failed to engage with the styles and techniques tifhis poetry-its structures, forms, registers, shapes, and movements; in short, its prosody. One reason this matters so much is that without studies to examine R. S. Thomas's craft-studies which critics can refer to, respond to, develop, and refute- opinions regarding the importance, and indeed the quality, of his poetry will have very little on which to base their claims. To quote M. Wynn Thomas slightly out of context, "Until his poetry is thus put to the test [... ], there can be no knowing precisely how ! Modernism: A Guide to Cnticism, ed. Michael H. Whitworth (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007) 47. Introduction 2 good it is, or what its strengths and weaknesses are"." In the case of R. S. Thomas, critical appraisal has been all over the map. For example, Gwyn Jones suggests that Thomas might very well be "the finest, conscious craftsman writing verse in English today";' but Robert Minhinnick writes that Thomas "has been consistently overrated as a writer"," and John Wain asserts that Thomas, having taken "flight from form" in the early 1970s, subsequently became nothing more than an essayist masquerading as a poet." There is, of course, nothing wrong with differences of opinion, which are both inevitable and necessary. There is, however, nearly alwqys something wrong with assertion that lacks corroborating demonstration. Most recently, Andrew Duncan has been guilty of this, falling back on stereotypical adjectives to describe R. S. Thomas-"gruff, grumpy, comminatory, patriarchal'Y-c-and making broad declarations, such as "[Thomas's] poetry is all moulded by political beliefs" and "his work, though highly controlled, is undistinguished in style"." But of all Duncan's assertions, the most revealing is this: "Thomas's gales of disapproval assume authond'.s Ironically, Duncan is himself doing precisely this, for he offers no poetic evidence to substantiate his claims, instead drawing from popular caricatures of Thomas and announcing them as true. Such assertions do not help us to analyze and evaluate poetry. This is also the case, one hastens to add, of criticism which heaps unsupported approval on poetry. In fact, it is perhaps even more damaging to praise poetry in the absence of demonstration. One can celebrate R. S. Thomas as the pre-eminent religious poet of the modern age, or the greatest British poet since Wordsworth, or any number of things, but until someone demonstrates what it is that makes him great-and subject matter alone does not make him great, just as an 2 "Reviewing R. S. Thomas", Books in Walcs (Summer, 1993): 7. 3 "R.S. Thomas at Seventy", Broadcast on BBC Radio 3, 7 Dec, 1983. Reproduced from Waiting: The Religious Poetry ojRonald Stuart Thomas, Welsh Priest and Poet, by M. J.J. van Buren (Dordrecht: ICG Printing, 1993) 179. 4 Robert Minhinnick, "Living With R. S. Thomas", Poetry Wales 29.1 (1993): 12. 5 Professing Poetry (London: Macmillan, 1977) 107. 6 Centre and Periphery in Modern British Poetry (Liverpool, Liverpool UP 2005) 212. 7 Ibid. 210. 8 Ibid. 212, italics added. Introduction 3 iconic celebrity does not-then praise has no gravity. It is less like criticism and more like unsubstantiated rumour. The primary purpose of this thesis is not to examine existing critical assertions but to examine the techniques of the poems, specifically their prosody, and in so doing to test existing critical positions. Judgements are made, and conclusions reached, not in the light (or the dark) of aesthetic partiality, but through a close examination of prosody. By prosody, one has in mind all aspects of style and technique by which R. S. Thomas influences and/or directs our experience when reading a given poem. Harvey Gross writes, "It is prosody and its structures which articulate the movement of feeling in a poem, and render to our understanding meanings which are not paraphrasable"." Indeed, the most fundamental "meaning" of a poem is not an extractable idea, theme, or moral; it cannot be set down as prose. Criticism can (and must, if it is to be worthy of the name) clarify poetry and/or make us see it in a new way, but problems arise when a poem is relegated to an idea or, worse, when the poem is used to illuminate the criticism (or the critic) rather than the other way round. Thus, a fundamental contention of this thesis is that, above all, it is the art we should be seeking to understand. Anything con- textual, or even extra-textual, which can help us to do so is valuable and welcome, but not at the expense of the poems. When considering the studies of R. S. Thomas to date, one finds many very decent ones and a number of excellent ones. However, these have primarily focused on the ideas and themes of R. S. Thomas. Thus we have many essays and articles with titles like "R. S. Thomas and the Welsh Hills", "R. S. Thomas as Priest-Poet", "R. S. Thomas and the Hidden God", and so on.