| R. S. Thomas (1913-2000), as the author of24collections of poetry and5volumesof prose works, and the winner of many literary awards including a nomination of theNobel Prize for literature, is considered as a leading contemporary poet of Wales and oneof the greatest lyric and religious poets of the English world in the20thcentury. Thomasspent most of his life in the country churches of North Wales, and retreated to the tip ofthe Lleyn Peninsula after his retirement. Thomas makes a unique figure in the the historyof British literature by leading an unbelievably simple life completely away from moderndevices and equipments and even newspapers. It is in this way that Thomas escaped fromthe noise and flauntiness of the modern world to the peacefulness, tranquility andsimplicity of rural life, where his concern for the future of human never ceases. In thissense, Thomas’s retreat is not of any escapism but an active attitude towards life. His lifepractice is for the only purpose of the salvation of human from the dilemma of bothecological and spiritual crises. In the course of Thomas’s seeking for truth, many themesare developed, such as nature, humanity, religion, war, ecologism, nationalismanti-materialism and anti-modernism, etc. However, it is nature that unites all thesethemes together, condensing them into a trinity of man, nature and God, in which thepoet’s warning thoughts dwells. This dissertation, as a text-based thematic study, tries toreveal the essence of the three dominant themes as a trinity. It consists of three parts:Introduction, main body and Conclusion, of which the main body also falls into threechapters, respectively dealing with the themes of man, nature and God.The first chapter studies the themes of humanity in R. S. Thomas’s poetry. Thomasargues that the essence of humanity lies in its nature attribute, which is also the fundamentand root of man. To keep to this fundament is to preserve eternal vitality, if not, nosustainable development. Two cycles of Thomas’s poetry focus on this theme, onethrough the representing of the natural living condition of the Welsh hill people, and the other meditating upon the lost self of the poet himself. Prytherch, a savage-like Welsh hillploughman, is depicted by his creator as the representative of his kind. And consideringhis nature attribute, simple wisdom and perpetual vitality, Prytherch is also a symbol ofthe relationship between man and land. Nature endows Prytherch and his kind marvelousliving and self-mending ability, making them the healer of human trauma and therebuilder of a new world. But quite oppositely, those so-called civilized people,represented by the poet himself, are all the way degenerated to rootlessness by repeatedlymaking wrong choices. With the hope of recognizing himself and finding for his self away to salvation, Thomas introduces such images as reflections in his poetry, only to findthat the reflection is in no way his self, but a strange other standing in the way, leaving thesubject no escape. The poet thus assumingly brings in another image, window, as apossible way of escaping to a realm of freedom, but again, to his disappointment, theoutside world is more often an alienated one, everybody there endlessly circling in acurved space, finding no escape. Both the poet and all the other modern world humanbeings are facing the dilemma that there is neither a clear way forward nor any easy wayback to their natural state. Thomas, through his life-long practice, shows human beingshow to regain humanity and get recovered both physically and spiritually in nature.The second chapter deals with themes of nature in R. S. Thomas’s poetry. Naturethemes, which dominate R. S. Thomas’s poetry, develop from realism into mysticism,with a short period of idealism at the very beginning of his literary career. Thomas’slife-long nature journey, though regarded as retreatism by many critics, conveys criticalattitudes against human’s alienation from nature. This is reflected in many of his poemsconcerning the plight of human both ecologically and spiritually unbalanced. In thesepoems,“Machine” is the symbol of human’s alienation, opposite to which is nature or theearth, with humanity swaying in between. This image structure explains the disastrousinfluence from applied science upon nature and humanity. Alienated man is being pushedforward to a wasteland of spirit by the “Machine” that is more a disaster than a savior ofcivilization. Worrying about the future of human, R. S. Thomas suggests that no betterway for human’s salvation is there than going back to a natural life, because nature or the earth is not only the basic of life and the last line of defense of humanity, but a space tohold together the spirit with the body. Firstly, nature has supplied everything for humanlife so that they do not have to seek for more from outside; secondly, nature is the onlyplace where man can identify his spiritual being. Only in nature can man get intoperpetual peace, in which he eventually, in God’s halo, comes to the union of body andspirit. Therefore, in Thomas’s poetry, it is nature, as the reserve of humanity and itsspiritual existence, that ties together the theme of humanity and the theme of God.The third chapter discusses the religious themes of R. S. Thomas’s poetry. The coreof R. S. Thomas’s religious idea is Nature Mysticism, constructed in a blending context ofVia Negativa and Cataphatic Theology. The narrative mode of Via Negativa goes like this:God is what He is not, and He is there where He is not. But more often, Thomas’s Godcomes from “out there”(as in Deism) to “here” to be with man like a relation, revealing toman His certain existence. This is an evident context of Cataphatic Theology. It is by wayof combining the two seemingly opposite contexts that Thomas develops his nature themeto a quite personal religious thought, Nature Mysticism. In his Nature Mysticism, Thomasargues that God is not a being in its essence, but a supreme spirit, who makes man aspiritual one by entering his soul, and thus He is the “ground of being”. This certain Godchooses to reveal Himself, and to Thomas, He prefers nature. That is why nature becomesthe medium between God and man in Thomas’s poetry. Eternity is not distant away, nor isparadise up there in the remote space; they are both here in this world, accompanying usin surrounding nature. Those who are ready to wait in peace and loneliness in nature aresooner or later to be enlightened and led by God to sublimate from nature to a morespacious realm, even to infinity and eternity. It is these ideas of Nature Mysticism thatmakes Thomas retreat from the modern world and enjoy an ascetic life in nature.The dissertation finally comes to a conclusion that R. S. Thomas’s three dominantthemes are actually a trinity, in which man, as the subjective existence, is the core, Godthe ground of being and nature the link between the other two. This trinity includes in itthree universal relations: man and nature, God and nature, man and God. Nature maintainshumanity, God through nature endows man with spirit, and in this way, they together advance perfect personalities. This is not only the portrayal of Thomas’s own life, but theway of salvation Thomas has found for the alienated man. |
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