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R. S. Thomas
(1913-2000)

Active: 1946-1997 in Wales, Britain, Europe

(Ronald Stuart Thomas)

By Ian Gordon (Emeritus Professor Anglia Ruskin University)

Indexing Data:

  • Active In: Wales, Britain, Europe
  • Born In: Wales, Britain, Europe
  • Activity: Poet, Priest, Welsh Nationalist, Political Campaigner

Life, Works and Times

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R.S. Thomas was the pre-eminent, Welsh poet writing in English in the second half of the twentieth century, and one of the leading, lyric poets writing in English anywhere during that time. He was active throughout the fifty years that followed the end of the Second World War, publishing twenty four separate volumes of new poetry during the period, beginning with The Stones of the Field (1946) and ending with No Truce with the Furies (1995). In addition he published three collections: Selected Poems, 1946-68 (1973), Later Poems, 1972-82 (1983) and Collected Poems, 1945-90 (1993); one longer poem, The Minister (1953); and an increasingly impressive range of prose, most of it written and published

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First published 21 March 2002

Citation: Gordon, Ian. "R. S. Thomas". The Literary Encyclopedia. 21 March 2002.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4376, accessed 9 February 2010.]