R.S. Thomas: Poet of the Hidden God : Meaning and Mediation in the Poetry of R.S. ThomasThis book is one philosopher's response to the poetry of R. S. Thomas. It examines the poet's struggle with the possibilities of sense in religion: R. S. Thomas has described his poetry as an obsession with the possibility of having 'conversations or linguistic confrontations with ultimate reality'. Some attempts at giving meaning to religious belief cannot withstand the assaults of criticism. In R. S. Thomas's verse, however, there emerges a hard-won celebration of the worship of a hidden God; a rare achievement in contemporary poetry. In plotting the course of the development of the poetry, the book brings out its many similarities with the thrusts and counter-thrusts of argument in the philosophy of religion in the second half of the twentieth century. The book should be of interest not only to admirers of R. S. Thomas, but to philosophers, theologians, students of literature, and to anyone concerned with questions concerning the sense or senselessness of religious belief. |
Contents
Earth to Earth | 11 |
Testing the Spirits | 24 |
An Inadequate Language? | 35 |
Copyright | |
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acceptance answer attempt beauty become belief bring celebration Church cold comes conception concern confronted context dark desire Deus absconditus difficulties earth emerge endurance eternity evil existence expression eyes face fact faith feel fields flowers give given God's grace hand heart hidden hills hope human involved issues kind knowledge land language leave light lives London look machine meaning mediation mind nature never notion offer once pain patience peasant philosophers poems poet poet-priest poet's poetry possibility powerful present priest problem Prytherch question R. S. Thomas reactions reason reference reflection relation religion religious sense seems seen Selected silence simply Song speak spirit stand stone struggle suffering talk tell things Thomas says Thomas's thought tree truth turn verse volume waiting waiting for God Wales wants