R.S. Thomas: Serial Obsessive

Published to mark the centenary of the sometime ‘ogre of Wales’, this volume (by the executor of his unpublished literary estate) deals with the idées fixes that serially possessed his fiercely intense imagination: Iago Prytherch, Wales, his family, and of course a vexingly elusive Deity. Here, these familiar obsessions are set in several unusual contexts that bring his poetry into startling new relief: his war poetry is considered alongside his early poetry’s relationship to English topographical tradition; comparisons with Borges and Levertov underline the international dimensions of his concerns; the intriguing ‘secret code’ of some of his Welsh-language references is cracked; and his painting-poems (including several hitherto unpublished) are moved centre stage from the peripheries to which they’ve been routinely relegated.