R.S. Thomas Writes About the People and Landscape of the Welsh ‘Hill Country’. by Referring Closely to at Least Two of His Poems, Show How He Makes the Welsh Countryside and Its Inhabitants Vivid to the Reader.
Ronald Stuart Thomas, born in Cardiff, on the 29th of March 1913-2000, He was a well known poet and a clergyman for the Church of England. Thomas’s ministry took him to a number rural parishes in north Wales, the bleak beauty of the landscape and the hard lives of the peasant farmers became the main themes of his poems.
By analysing these aspects of Thomas’s poetry this essay will examine how he makes the Welsh countryside and its inhabitants vivid to the reader. Thomas's poem “The Hill Farmer Speaks” demonstrates inextricable link between the Welsh hill farmer, nature, his land and his animals. The hill farmer holds a special bond with his animals for which he cares 'year after year'. The hill farmer is used by Thomas as a representation of the hill farming community; he hides himself from the curious gaze of those onlookers who don’t understand his way of life; he appeals to the reader not to be treated differently from anyone else and in a refrain he emphasises this by stating, 'I am a man like you.' Thomas represents this in a rhyming couplet to give more power to his message and also for this man to be understood. He is 'stripped of love'. Thomas employs these harsh words and phrases to emphasise the bleak landscape and the farmer’s manual efforts in 'desolate acres' and 'land’s hardness'. Thomas also uses oxymoron when he describes the landscape as 'rough with dew' also to reinforce the farmer’s toil. The second stanza is presented to convey how this lifestyle is a tradition that goes ‘year after year,’ This stanza demonstrates the farming life is the very blood of the people and is a tradition Thomas so desperately wants to save through poetry. He draws the reader’s attention to the hardships the farmers now face. The strongest message is that the farmer and the animals are one. The farmer states 'the pig is a friend ' and 'the cattle's breath mingles with mine’. He is `content with his life as he tells how he ‘wears it willingly like a
By analysing these aspects of Thomas’s poetry this essay will examine how he makes the Welsh countryside and its inhabitants vivid to the reader. Thomas's poem “The Hill Farmer Speaks” demonstrates inextricable link between the Welsh hill farmer, nature, his land and his animals. The hill farmer holds a special bond with his animals for which he cares 'year after year'. The hill farmer is used by Thomas as a representation of the hill farming community; he hides himself from the curious gaze of those onlookers who don’t understand his way of life; he appeals to the reader not to be treated differently from anyone else and in a refrain he emphasises this by stating, 'I am a man like you.' Thomas represents this in a rhyming couplet to give more power to his message and also for this man to be understood. He is 'stripped of love'. Thomas employs these harsh words and phrases to emphasise the bleak landscape and the farmer’s manual efforts in 'desolate acres' and 'land’s hardness'. Thomas also uses oxymoron when he describes the landscape as 'rough with dew' also to reinforce the farmer’s toil. The second stanza is presented to convey how this lifestyle is a tradition that goes ‘year after year,’ This stanza demonstrates the farming life is the very blood of the people and is a tradition Thomas so desperately wants to save through poetry. He draws the reader’s attention to the hardships the farmers now face. The strongest message is that the farmer and the animals are one. The farmer states 'the pig is a friend ' and 'the cattle's breath mingles with mine’. He is `content with his life as he tells how he ‘wears it willingly like a