Modalities of Cultural Identity in the Writings of Idris Davies and Alun Lewis

Abstract

This thesis compares and contrasts the subtle modes and inscriptions of cultural identity in the work of two English-language writers from Wales – Idris Davies (1905-1953) and Alun Lewis (1915-1944). It also deconstructs, and contests, the normative paradigms attached to their personalities and literary work – paradigms that construct Davies as an authentic spokesman for industrialised south Wales, and Lewis as an archetypal soldier-poet. These inherited paradigms, the thesis contends, are limiting and untenable; accordingly, the work of both writers is placed in new and challenging conceptual frames, and viewed in unfamiliar cultural contexts – with the result that each is wholly defamiliarised. In performing this critical act, the thesis makes use of a range of published and unpublished material, including poems, essays, short stories, diaries, journals, letters, and visual images. Its six paired chapters explore this material within three main conceptual frames: the origins and development of Davies’s and Lewis’s critical/cultural profiles; their mediations of Wales; and their representations of wartime experience.