The Powys Review NUMBER TWENTY-ONE POWYS FAMILY List of more than 500 books for sale. Individually priced. 10% discount for Powys Society Members, Send £4 for catalogue. Peter Eaton (Booksellers) Ltd, Lilies, Weedon, Aylesbury, Bucks. HP22 4NS GOOD COLLECTION Catalogue 244: The Powys OF POWYS BOOKS Family & Their Circle Including inscribed copies and first editions First Editions and Associated Material from the Collection of Send for list Lloyd Emerson Siberell Also BOOKS ON WALES Available from Bertram Rota Ltd, Grosmont Books 9-11 Langley Court, Covent Garden, The Steps London WC2E 9RX Grosmont Abergavenny Gwent NP7 8EP Tel: Golden Valley 240655 Price: £2.50 or $4.00 The Powys Review Editor Belinda Humfrey Reviews Editor Peter Miles Advisory Board Marius Buning, Department of English, Free University, Amsterdam, Netherlands Glen Cavaliero, St Catherine's College, Cambridge T. J. Diffey, School of Cultural and Community Studies, University of Sussex Peter Easingwood, Department of English, University of Dundee Michel Gresset, Department of English, Paris VII University, France Ian Hughes, Department of English, Normal College, Bangor, N. Wales Ben Jones, Department of English, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada Ned Lukacher, Department of English, University of Illinois at Chicago, U.S.A. J. Lawrence Mitchell, Department of English, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, U.S.A Elmar Schenkel, Department of English, University of Freiburg, W. Germany Correspondence, contributions, and books for review may be addressed to the Editor, Department of English, Saint David's University College, Lampeter, Dyfed, SA48 7ED. Copyright ©, The Editor We are grateful to Mr Francis Powys and Laurence Pollinger Ltd., for permission to quote from the writings of John Cowper Powys and T. F. Powys, and to the late Mrs Evelyn Elwin for permission to quote from the writings of Llewelyn Powys. The Powys Review may be obtained from Booksellers for £3.50, or from Gomer Press, Llandysul, Dyfed, for £3.50 plus 75p postage. The Powys Review is printed by J. D. Lewis & Sons Ltd., Gomer Press, Llandysul, Dyfed. Enquiries about advertisment in The Powys Review should be made to James Dawson, 99 Corve Street, Ludlow, Shropshire. Tel. Ludlow (0584) 2274. Contents Tony Brown Reviews "On the Screen of Eternity": Some Aspects of R. S. Thomas's Prose Mary Casey The Kingfisher's Wing Charles Lock GLEN CAVALIERO 60 "To Ravage and Redeem": Maiden Castle and the Violation of Form 16 Vilhclm Ekclund The Second Light CEDRIC HENTSCHEL 61 Peter Christensen Wessex 1272: History in John Cowper Noel Kennedy Thomas Powys's The Brazen Head 28 Henry Vaughan: Poet of Revelation GARETH ROBERTS 63 H. W. Fawkner John Cowper Powys and Ontotheology 35 Joan H. Harding From Fox Howe to Fairy Hill. Ben Jones Matthew Arnold's Celtic Connections John Cowper Powys in Mexico 49 BARBARA DENNIS 64 Patricia Vaughan Dawson John Halperin Gissing: A Life in Books Etchings and Sculptures Suggested by ANDREW HASSAM 66 Scenes from J. C. Powys's Porius 50 Caitlin Thomas with George Tremlett Reviews 60 Caitlin: Life with Dylan Thomas JAMES A. DAVIES 67 Notes on Contributors 79 Meic Stephens, ed. The Oxford Companion to the Literature of Wales PETER DAVISON 69 Roland Mathias Anglo- Welsh Literature: An Illustrated History JOHN HARRIS 70 Richard Poole Richard Hughes: Novelist PAUL BENNETT MORGAN 72 Randall Stevenson The British Novel Since the Thirties: An Introduction WILLIAM BAKER 74 Jeremy Hooker The Presence of the Post JOHN WILLIAMS 76 The Powys Review Number 21 1987-1988 Volume Vli Tony Brown "On the Screen of Eternity": Some Aspects of R. S. Thomas's Prose Writing in his autobiography, Neb, of his the Church in Wales weekly, Y Llan.4 arrival in 1967 at Aberdaron, R. S. Thomas Other essays followed over the next seven says that he had come to' 'the end of his own years in the same j ournal and in YFflam, the personal pilgrimage".' Geographically, he latter under the editorship of Euros Bowen. had come almost full circle: from Holyhead, Perhaps more significant than these early where he spent his childhood; then (after essays were some of the letters, in Welsh, university at Bangor and theological college which R. S. Thomas wrote to YHan in the in Cardiff) to posts as curate in the 1930s at immediate post-war years, letters which Chirk and Maelor Saesneg on the English indicate another area of difficulty on his border; and later westwards, to livings at journey: his consciousness that the Church Manafon in Montgomeryshire, Eglwysfach in which he served was failing to provide near Aberystwyth and finally Aberdaron, moral and spiritual leadership to Wales as a with Holyhead visible on a clear day across nation at an important point in her history. the sea to the north. But more importantly His nationalism and his pacifism come R. S. Thomas's pilgrimage, his search for 2 together in his criticism of the Church in "the real Wales of my imagination", Wales's continued acquiescence in the face begun as he gazed westwards towards Wales of contemporary militarism, an acquies- from his exile at Maelor, has been a spiritual cence which he sees as typifying the Church and imaginative journey, one that has taken in Wales's servile attitude towards England him across the boundary between two and its traditions: cultures. It has not been an easy journey. The . One can expect to have leadership and major obstacle on R. S. Thomas's pilgrim- inspiration from the Church, of course, but age, of course, was the fact that his had been after all the un-Welsh attitude of the Church an English-speaking upbringing. As he em- in Wales is only a reflection of the extensive anglicisation which has infiltrated the whole phasized in an essay in 1958, "without the nation. And although the trouble in Dolgellau key of the Welsh language one and all must is very unpleasant,5 we ought to welcome this needs pass by the door that opens on the real opportunity for the Church to give a positive Wales"; without the language, he says, one 3 lead in matters of importance like these. remains "a dyn dieithr, a stranger". It is Nobody can deny that our nation is caught perhaps easy today, when opportunities for in two minds at a fateful time in her history. learning Welsh are so numerous, to under- Despite the two ugly wars which have gone by, estimate Thomas's determined struggle, there is continuous talk of another war, and through the early years of the War, to considerable preparation in that direction. In master the language. One has to admire the the face of all this there are some preaching sheer stubbornness which kept him trav- pacifism, some others demanding Welsh elling every week from Maelor all the way to regiments, while the majority of our young Llangollen to have his Welsh lesson {Neb, p. people will be quietly joining the British army. Is the Church in Wales giving any con- 40). Remarkably, by 1945 Thomas was sistent guidance in these circumstances? It sufficiently fluent to publish his first pieces isn't. It is accepting things as they are, as it did of prose in Welsh, some short essays on the before and during the last war. How did it birds of the Welsh countryside, published in behave on that occasion? How many of its 6 "On the Screen of Eternity" leaders, how many of its priests stood for prose is ultimately secondary; it is in poetry peace and justice? Didn't they follow that he responds most fully to life "in all its England servilely, praying for victory and variety and its complexity"—and yet R. S. singing the English national anthem on every Thomas has published only one poem in occasion, while more than one of its priests Welsh, "Y Gwladwr" ["The Country- joined the "Home Guard". man'^ in YFflam in 1950. ("The last two I was more or less silent at that time. It was a very difficult time. But now, despite the lines were praised by Gwenallt", he told an interviewer in 1973, "but one swallow trouble and the threats, there's some kind of 8 peace in the world, and everybody has a duty doesn't make a summer".) Here is a third to consolidate this peace. Wales is, as was said difficulty which Thomas has had to con- above, caught in two minds, but she has, as a front on his long pilgrimage. He explains in small nation, an inclination towards pacifism "If I knew the language . ." and "The and friendship. If the Church were ready to Creative Writer's Suicide" ["Hunanladd- do its duty as the Church of Christ, it ought to iad y Lienor'', 1977] that he feels he lacks the take advantage of the situation, and give intuitive sensitivity to the intricacies and every support to that inclination. But, alas, it nuances of the language which the native prefers to leave things as they are. And things Welsh-speaker has and, therefore, he lacks as they are smell of Englishness and English- the confidence to make the critical discrim- ness is under suspicion now, because it has a bad reputation, not only in Wales, but in the inations which are a fundamental part of the world. process of poetic composition. The distress, the sense of inner division, which this sit- The purpose of this letter is not merely to denounce the English, although no small fault uation must have caused Thomas over the lies with them, because there are many of years—the feeling that he cannot give full them in the Church in Wales, and they have a expression to his most profound thoughts strong voice in church matters.