R.S. Thomas: Poetry and Theology.

Mahan, David C.

R.S. Thomas: Poetry and Theology. By William V. Davis. Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2007. ISBN 978-1-932792-49-2. Pp. ix + 219. $39.95.

In his Preface to this collection of essays, William Davis promises two pilgrimages. The one rehearses, through a study of his verse, the Welsh poet-priest's "traditional theological quest"; the other, Davis tells us, is his own (x, xi). Reflecting in his Conclusion on the ten studies his book offers, the author then summarizes his effort as one "not simply to 'define' and describe R.S. Thomas's long life and career but rather to 'divine' it" (158). Between these thematic bookends of peregrination and divination, we find one of the most inclusive treatments available of Thomas's theological interests as he explored and expressed them in his poetry and thought for over fifty years.

Given Thomas's enormous literary output, it impresses that Davis has managed to cull from his own critical journey with Thomas's life and work many of the most illuminating examples of the poet's religious sensibilities, and to order these around significant theological themes. Davis rightly highlights Thomas's familiar preoccupations with the absence or hiddenness of God (deus absconclitus), the cross, and the difficulty of maintaining faith in the face of modernity--helpfully situating Thomas in the context of poetry's, and Christianity's, contemporary "theological crisis." But his long contemplation of the poet's art and thought bears subtler fruit as the middle and later essays give more refined attention to specific aspects of Thomas's theopoetic development. His discussion of Thomas as a "poet-priest of the apocalyptic mode" for example, or of the poet's fascination with mirrors as a trope by which "Thomas grapples with the relationship between God and the man 'made in [God's] image'" (74) illuminate how Thomas sought, in D. Z. Phillips's construal, "to mediate a religious sense" in his verse (R.S. Thomas: Poet of the Hidden God, 1986, ix, passim).

Davis proves similarly insightful in his attention to Thomas's obsession with "gaps" as both mode and metaphor for theopoetic reflection. Focusing his study on the mid-career collection Frequencies, Davis notes the important connection between the poet's sense of God and the human apprehension of God, and the role of poetry as a formal mediation of this encounter. From his substantial close reading of the first poem in Frequencies, "The Gap" he elaborates two significant facets of Thomas's poetics. The first draws out from the poem's final lines an implied reciprocity between divine and human words. If it is the case, Davis observes, that "God's actions are his words, that, indeed, his only 'action' is through words ... then God, like the poet, can only work through words" (89), thus establishing the primary means available for the human encounter with God. Rather than advance any simple or elevated notion of the poetic, however, Davis quickly notes how Thomas himself complicates the possibility of bridging the gap between humanity and God. On the one hand, Davis continues, for Thomas "every poem itself fills in a gap," such that "the poem becomes the means of voiding the void, of closing the gaps--both between God and man and between man and man" (90). On the other hand, in the absence of any new words from God, communication with God in speech now moves unilaterally, and so inevitably falls short: "the gap between man and God remains" (91). Hence, not one poem but many are called for (90); and though all express man's "verbal hunger" for communication with God, no number of them can fully satisfy such desire. In this light, poetry becomes a means of reporting an absence which is also a presence, as Davis's reading of "Shadows" concludes: "God's metaphysically mystical presence is only 'visible' as a mental shadow, and as that, it is only an implied presence. This meeting, mind to mind, across the gaps of thought, creates a shiver of recognition so dark in 'splendour' that it can 'blind us'" (92). "Shiver of recognition" is a lovely phrase, which captures well what Davis rightly believes constitutes the hoped-for achievement as well as the limitations of poetry advanced by Thomas.

But where Davis excels both in elaborating such connections in Thomas through close readings and identifying important theological themes, I felt a persistent expectation for more. To be clear, Davis shows his skill as a literary critic throughout, attending carefully to the prosody, diction, and imagery of the poetry as a basis for his own reflections. One of many superb examples is his reading of the poem "Wallace Stevens" (151-53), where Davis turns observations of poetic form into substantive critical insight. Referring to the second section of the poem, for example, he observes:

 The enjambment of these lines, combined with Thomas's
 characteristic, indeed quintessential, line breaks and the way he
 inevitably emphasizes and compounds the complexities of meanings by
 the judicious use of the white spaces at the ends of the enjambed
 lines, is conspicuously in evidence here. Each of these line-turns
 amends or revises the anticipated sense of the statement being
 built up in the previous line, and thus they subtly change the
 poems meaning, line by line. (152)

This is solid reading, and well-demonstrated in its subsequent development, as is his treatment of the poems metaphoric transformations and his enlightening observation that "Both Stevens and Thomas, arguably, were men of principally autumnal or wintry minds" (153). Still, from the subtitle of the book, Poetry and Theology, certain expectations arise for deeper theological engagement particularly. In this regard, with a few notable exceptions, I repeatedly felt that Davis brings us to the edge of significant theological issues, ably reporting Thomas's religious sensibilities and concerns but then pulling up short.

In fairness, as a compilation of "occasional" essays--mainly conference lectures developed and published as articles--to look for a sustained theological discussion or argument would expect more than these collected studies warrant--indeed, more than the author himself promises. (Also in fairness, it should be noted that Davis's method of posing his own questions in response to Thomas's poetry mirrors well the character of the art as well as the artist ["Thomas is a poet of questions and of quests," p. 52], thus maintaining the attitude of the fellow pilgrim he tells us he is.) But under the rubric of "poetry and theology" we justifiably expect a fairly exacting level of engagement, which presses further the kinds of interests that theology uniquely brings to literary studies.

To cite just one example, prominent in the early chapters of the book, Davis takes up the relationship between poetry and religious belief, as manifested in the complex calling of "poet-priest." Taking his cue from Thomas vis a vis Wallace Stevens's contention that "Poetry does not address itself to beliefs" Davis upholds that distinction as legitimate in response to the consternation readers feel when expecting orthodox views in poems written by a priest. In such encounters, Davis concludes, "it seems necessary to accept Thomas as poet, on poetry's terms exclusively--even when he deals with religious themes and even especially so, when the poems seem to contradict the theological position espoused by the priest" (43). One wonders about the terms "necessary" and "exclusively" here. Although Thomas evidently held to the distinction, as Davis attests, he was far from consistent. How, for example, do we assimilate the ways that Thomas conflates religion and poetry--"poetry is religion, religion is poetry," "it is within the scope of poetry to express or convey religious truth" (qtd. p. 7)--with the view that it is unacceptable to assess the religious sense expressed in the poetry on religious grounds? Davis does not question the apparent inconsistency, as an issue that has theological as well as poetic ramifications.

Furthermore, the familiar ring of this dichotomy, common to modern poetics, nevertheless strikes a discordant note in light of the history of religious literature, on one hand, and of other theological considerations on the other. It seems hardly to resonate, for example, with the sensibilities of a Herbert, Donne or Milton, or more recently G. M. Hopkins, David Jones and Geoffrey Hill. Even T. S. Eliot, famous for distinguishing the poetic from other forms of articulation, later mitigated any sharp dichotomy between poetic and religious assent or sensitivity, whether in our appreciation or our critical practices. (See his 1934 essay "Religion and Literature": "Literary criticism should be completed by criticism from a definite theological standpoint," [Points of View, 1941, 145]; also his Preface to the 1928 edition of The Sacred Wood, pp. vii-x, or his more sustained argument in the Page-Barbour Lectures published in 1934 as After Strange Gods: A Primer of Modern Heresy.)

Assuredly, the tension is real (certainly Hopkins as well as Eliot felt it), but on what grounds, whether literary or theological, is it resolved in the direction Davis, a la Thomas, maintains? Moreover, as theology searches for languages of faith beyond the rationalistic discourses of its longstanding tradition--quite appropriately so in this reviewer's opinion--a poetry capable of articulating faith as well as the concerns and struggles of the faithful, as Thomas's poetry surely does, promises a fresh, compelling theological discourse in its own right. To divorce it "necessarily" from religious beliefs unnecessarily diminishes that potential. The opposite view may be dubious, but the possibility of a deeper connection between religious beliefs and poetic statement remains open to debate, and it would add substance to a work on poetry and theology to explore such a matter further.

In short, what I often felt was lacking in this book is more vigorous theological critique: rather than reiterating a position being espoused, theological attentiveness at least debates its legitimacy or, conversely, defends it on theological grounds. In this and many other instances Davis does neither, often introducing a theme or category that bears theological interest and import, but not pressing the matter further. (Statements such as "Thomas's quest ... is ultimately more epistemological than it is ontological" [30], "This 'presence' is simultaneously present and absent. It is an 'Other' that is both self and other; an 'Other' that may well be God" [83], or "in so celebrating [Wallace] Stevens, Thomas defines his own action and activity here as 'celebrating the sacrament / of the imagination"--the sacrament of poetry' ...," [156], all offer intriguing possibilities in their contexts, as well as in the larger context of theology and poetry, but Davis leaves them undeveloped.

Equally surprising for a work on poetry and theology, Davis cites moments in Thomas's art and thought that seem ripe for deeper theological reflection and then does not take full advantage of these opportunities. For example, the lines "This is what art could do / Interpreting faith" from the poem "Souillac: Le Sacrifice d'Abraham" (see 100ff) open up rich possibilities for a discussion of poetry as a distinctive form of theological articulation, as does Thomas's appeal for a poet "who can deploy the new vocabulary and open up new avenues, or should I say airways for the spirit in the twenty-first century" (cited 120). (For examples of works that take fuller advantage of the poetry as a basis for theological critique, compare D. Z. Phillips's Poet of the Hidden God, mentioned above, or Glen Cavaliero's 1983 provocative treatment of Charles Williams's poetry in Charles Williams: Poet of Theology.)

Despite these reservations, Davis is again to be commended for providing an ample supply of such references in one book, together with consistently insightful literary-critical readings traced along compelling and timely theological topics. It may be, however, that what Davis offers here merits a more appropriate subtitle, along the lines of an "introduction" or "primer" for a study of poetry and theology through the work of this "poet of faith" For Thomas enthusiasts and scholars alike eager for such an undertaking, this collection of essays gives a valuable map of this fascinating terrain. For those who have not read R. S. Thomas but share the author's theological interests, Davis's book offers a superb introduction that doubtless will inspire a variety of fruitful projects.

David C. Mahan

Rivendell Institute, Yale University