A Brief Comment on Intertextuality in Two Poems by Ronald Stuart Thomas
A Brief Comment on Intertextuality in Two Poems by Ronald Stuart Thomas

Summary/Abstract: The objective of this essay is to analyse two intriguing examples of intertextuality in the poetry of the Welsh priest-poet R. S. Thomas. The first of these examines his “rewritten” version of Wallace Stevens’s famous poem “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” which provides Thomas with an opportunity to vent his misanthropy, while the other poem is related both to Philip Larkin’s poem of the same title, and to the whole genre of “song of dawn.” Both demonstrate how Thomas draws on the original texts, while suffusing it with his own technical and thematic idiosyncrasies.

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