"[A] Shifting / Identity Never Your Own": the Uncanny and the Unhomely in the Writing of R.S
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"[A] shifting / identity never your own": the uncanny and the unhomely in the writing of R.S. Thomas by Fflur Dafydd In fulfilment of the requirements of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The University of Wales English Department University of Wales, Bangor 2004 l'W DIDEFNYDDIO YN Y LLYFRGELL YN UNIG TO BE CONSULTED IN THE LIBRARY ONLY Abstract "[A] shifting / identity never your own:" The uncanny and the unhomely in the writing of R.S. Thomas. The main aim of this thesis is to consider R.S. Thomas's struggle with identity during the early years of his career, primarily from birth up until his move to the parish of Aberdaron in 1967. It is an analysis both of the poet's personal life and his public, national role as a poet, examining the tensions present between his numerous, conflicting identities. The discussion is separated into three main chapters. The introductory passage takes into consideration the various ways R.S. Thomas is constructed by his critics and by the media, concentrating in particular on the varying responses to his death in 2000. Chapter 1 then moves on to discuss notions of the uncanny, as proposed by Sigmund Freud and the critic Nicholas Royle, as a means of exploring Thomas's feelings of alienation and displacement throughout childhood and early adult life. Chapter 2 is a comparative study of R.S. Thomas and the Scots vernacular poet Hugh MacDiarmid, which looks at how MacDiarmid provides for Thomas a model of Celtic regeneration, enabling Thomas to relocate himself in a cultural context, and also to explore the cultural and linguistic tensions he feels within Wales, as an English-language poet. Chapter 3 then attempts to relate the uncanny to issues of post-colonial theory, using the work of Homi K. Bhabha and David Punter as a means of providing a more theoretical basis in the form of the unhomely, and to show how Thomas's political poetry presents Wales as a terrifying, and often unreal territory within which the poet evidently felt both disorientated and displaced. This study concludes by considering various notions of personal, cultural and spiritual unity as they are presented in Thomas's work, and how ultimately, Thomas struggled to counteract the alienating forces of the uncanny and the unhomely, and to strive for a spiritual unity within himself. Table of Contents Introduction 1 1. Chapter 1: "Betrayed by wilderness within." R.S. Thomas and the Uncanny 27 2. Chapter 2: "A mixture of Welsh imagination and Scottish intellectualism." R.S. Thomas and Hugh MacDiarmid 110 3. Chapter 3: "Scurrilous thoughts."The unhomely moment in the political poetry of R.S. Thomas 191 4. Conclusion: "[A] shifting / identity never your own" 279 5. Sources Consulted 290 Cydnabyddiaeth / Acknowledgements Hoffwn ddiolch, yn gyntaf oil, i Brifysgol Cymru, Bangor a Chanolfan Ymchwil R.S. Thomas am yr ysgoloriaeth a'm galluogodd i gwblhau'r ddoethuriaeth hon. Yr wyf yn hynod ddyledus i'm goruchwylydd, Dr. Tony Brown, am ei gefnogaeth, ei amynedd, ei sylwadau treiddgar a'i broflennu trylwyr, ac am ei ffydd ynof o'r cychwyn cyntaf. Hoffwn hefyd ddiolch i ddau a fu'n barod i rannu eu profiadau a'u cyngor doeth a mi — Dr. Elin Royles a Dr. Dafydd Llewelyn, ac hefyd i Lowri Hughes, Gareth Pierce, Chiara Luis a Eilir Pierce am y llety, yr hwyl a'r brecwastau. Yn ogystal, hoffwn ddiolch i fy rhieni, Wynfford James a Menna Elfyn, a fy mrawd, Meilyr Ceredig, am eu hiwmor a'u cariad amhrisiadwy dros y blynyddoedd. Braf, hefyd, yw cael cydnabod cefnogaeth Iwan Davies Evans — y canol llonydd distaw — a fu'n gefn mawr i mi dros y misoedd du diwethaf. Yr wyf yn cyflwyno y ddoethuriaeth hon er cof am Rachel Myra Jones, fy mamgu. * * * I would like to thank the University of Wales, Bangor and The R.S. Thomas Research Centre for the scholarship that enabled the completion of this thesis. I am greatly indebted to my supervisor, Dr. Tony Brown for his continuing support, patience, insight, meticulous proof reading, and above all for his faith in me, from the very beginning. I would also like to thank two others who have been willing to share with me their own experiences of research, and their good advice — Dr. Elin Royles and Dr. Dafydd Llewelyn. It is also necessary to thank Lowri Hughes, Gareth Pierce, Chiara Luis and Eilir Pierce for the lodgings, the fun and the breakfasts. I would also like to thank my parents, Wynfford James and Menna Elfyn, along with my brother Meilyr Ceredig, whose love and humour has been of insurmountable worth over the years. Last, but certainly not least, I wish to thank Iwan Davies Evans both for his strength and delightfully calming influence throughout these last few stressful months. I present this thesis in memory of Rachel Myra Jones, my grandmother. Abbreviations (1) Poetry AL An Acre of Land (Newtown: Montgomeryshire Printing Co., 1952). I3T The Bread of Truth (London: Hart-Davis, 1963). CF Collected Poems: 1945-1990 (London: J.M. Dent 1993). ERS The Echoes Return Slow (London: Macmillan, 1988). SF The Stones of the Field (Carmarthen: Druid Press, 1946). SP Selected Poems: 1946-1968 (London: Hart-Davis, 1973). SYT Song at the Year's Turning (London: Hart-Davis, 1955). T Tares (London: Hart-Davis, 1961). WA Welsh Airs (Bridgend: Poetry Wales Press,1987). WW? What is a Welshman? (Llandybie: Christopher Davies, 1974). (ii) Prose A R.S. Thomas: Autobiographies, ed. and trans. Jason Walford Davies (London: J.M. Dent, 1997). CorW? Cymru or Wales? (Llandysul: Gomer, 1992). SLPR Selected Prose, ed. Sandra Anstey (3rd edn; Bridgend: Seren, 1995). WPT Wales: A Problem of Translation (London: Adam Archive Publications, 1996). PMI Pe Medrwn yr laith eds. Tony Brown and Bedwyr Lewis Jones (Llandybie: Christopher Davies, 1988). Introduction: Constructing R.S. Thomas What would R.S. Thomas, lover of simple Celtic churches, have made of the celebration of his life and poetry which took place in the full grandeur of Westminster Abbey on March 28?1 In an article in the New Welsh Review in the Summer of 2001, Barbara Prys-Williams questioned the authenticity and appropriateness of R.S. Thomas's commemorative service in Westminster Abbey. What would R.S. Thomas, a self-identified republican and Welsh nationalist, have made of an event situated at the very heart of imperial, monarchical England? The question seemed dense with a Thomas-like complexity, reminiscent of several other unanswered questions addressed by Thomas's poetry "without hope / of a reply" (CP, 361). And yet, there were some answers to be found. After all, the event seemed carefully to take into account the new, post-colonial model of devolution, inviting a representative 'voice' from each nation to pay their dues to the poet, a responsibility shared between the Welsh poet Gillian Clarke, the Scottish poet John Burnside, and the Irish poet Seamus Heaney. But its tenuousness as a commemorative event was only partially masked by this post-colonial compromise. Nothing disguised the fact that the event was organised by the Poet Laureate — an appointment of the English crown, of course — and that R.S. Thomas's memory was celebrated in the capital city of England, through the medium of the English language and under the roof of an English institution. And it is little wonder, perhaps, that Barbara I Barbara Prys-Williams, "Chapter and Verse: Poets defy the elements and the machine to celebrate R.S.'s life and work," New Welsh Review 52 (Summer 2001): 99 2 Prys-Williams feels it appropriate to record the significance of the weather at the end of the day, suggesting R.S. Thomas's likely response: "We left in a thunderstorm."2 One of the main problems concerning Thomas seems to be that of definition: both externally, within the public realm, and internally, on a more personal level. The many contradictory aspects of his complex character made the definition of a singular, unified R.S. Thomas near impossible. When one turns to the work itself, one finds that the images of self and of the "demolition / of the identity" (CP, 329) vacillate consistently between complex distortions of reflection and deconstruction. He seemed plagued by the impossibility of secure identity, pondering both the "shifting / identity never your own"3 and the "dismantling / by the self of a self it / could not reassemble" (CP, 329). If anything could have served as a kind of resolution to his complex character, one would suppose that it would be his death. In later life, Thomas himself had toyed with the idea of resolving his many inconsistencies — most of which were of a cultural kind. Although a fierce advocate of the Welsh language and culture, he published the main bulk of his poetry in London, and it perhaps remains a mystery why he chose to accept the Queen's medal for poetry, and to send his son to an English boarding school. And yet such contradictions were, in one sense, the very essence of Thomas's personae, public and private. In his much quoted poem "Epitaph," for example, he urges that "The poem in the rock and / the poem in the mind / Are not one / It was in dying 11 tried to make them so" (CP, 216). This suggests a desire for the unity not only of the personal and public self, but also of the poetic persona. 2 Prys-Williams 99. 3 R.S.Thomas, No Truce with the Furies (Newcastle-upon-tyne: Bloodaxe, 1995) 31. 3 In the aftermath of R.S. Thomas's death, his public persona proved almost crucial in constructing an identity for the poet.