Kirjahaku

R. S. Thomas was a major figure in the landscape of contemporary poetry - attested by his Nobel Prize for Literature nomination. His poetry, coloured by personal experience of rural Wales, is stark but passionate.

Pondering now the being and nature of God, now the mystery of time, now the assault of contemporary lifestyles on the natural world, R. S. Thomas’s poetry and prose reflect his Welsh heritage and his determination to be Welsh. Moved by his own personal attraction to the work of Thomas and guided by his careful reading of it, William V. Davis brings us this excellent collection of essays exploring the distinguished yet controversial poet-priest. In the autobiographical essay, Thomas reveals his passion for his homeland and his ever-present hunger for spiritual and natural exploration: As I stood in the sun and the sea wind, with my shadow falling upon those rocks, I certainly was reminded of the transience of human existence, and my own in particular. As Pindar put it: “A dream about a shadow is man.” I began to ponder more the being and nature of God and his relation to the late twentieth-century situation, which science and technology had created in the western world. Where did the ancient world of rock and ocean fit into an environment in which nuclear physics and the computer were playing an increasingly prominent part? . . .

Thomas' fremgangsmåte har vært å betjene et prestegjeld på en forblåst halvøy i Wales, og i hans diktning antar dette fattige, karrige, regnfulle og provinsielle Wales form av et filter som bringer frem menneskelivets grunnleggende eksistensielle kår i essens.

Få har skrive så sterkt om tvil og tru som R. S. Thomas (1913-2000). Diktaren utforska dei gåtefulle og løynde sidene ved Gud og skreiv trufast om den tunge kjensla av Guds fråvær. Iblant òg om dei få, lysande glimta då han likevel kjendest nær. Han skreiv fram Gud i bilete han fann i heimlandet sitt, Wales, frå heiene og liene i fjellandet der, og kysten med fuglane, tidvatnet og bølgjene. Alt dette finn ein òg i dei sublime og vakre kjærleiksdikta han skreiv til kunstnar-kona si, Elsi. R. S. Thomas var nominert til Nobelprisen i litteratur i 1995. Utval og gjendikting er ved Hans Johan Sagrusten.