Article: Why the most famous Welsh poet writes in English. (R.S. Thomas)

TO a poet, words are volunteers. R. S. Thomas has said that he writes to satisfy 'my own personal quest for enlightenment. I work out in a poem my way towards the truth', ('Language, Exile, a Writer and the Future', talk given by R. S. Thomas to the Welsh Union of Writers in 1987, transcript in The Works, issue No. 1, 1988). Poetry being so crucial -- an incarnation of the soul, as he quotes from Wordsworth in the same talk -- then his writing in English is an enterprise his psyche allows if not commands, otherwise it would come up with measures impairing the vital current. It would send out directives making it impossible for him to write in English. The directives, ...

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