News at Eleven: R.S. Thomas spoke in the accents of

an educated Englishman, but for him England represented the vulgar modernity and commercialism that he loathed. He learnt Welsh only as an adult and, though he would write prose in that language, all his poetry is written in English, and he always acknowledged his debt to English poets. He was a fervent Welsh nationalist--one of his few modern heroes was Saunders Lewis, the founder of Plaid Cymru--"too small for his clothes / too big for the strait‑jacket / of our ideas". (In contrast, Dylan Thomas, asked for his view of Welsh nationalism, replied in three words, two of them "Welsh nationalism".)

from The Telegraph: The enduring wisdom of a strange Welsh bard

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