Early Twentieth Century
Welsh writing in English is generally seen as beginning in the twentieth century, following the decline of the Welsh language. A memorable twentieth-century poet who initially wrote in Welsh was Idris Davies (1905–53). But "rebellion against chapel religion", along with the "inspirational influence of English" poets, led him to write in English (Gwalia Deserta (1938); The Angry Summer (1943)).
A major Welsh poet is Swansea's Dylan Thomas (1914–53) whose first collection, 18 Poems, was published in 1934. His most celebrated work, including Under Milk Wood (first broadcast in 1954), was published after the Second World War. While David Jones (1895–1974) was born in a London suburb, his father was from North Wales. Jones' epic poem In Parenthesis, which deals with his experience of World War I, was published in 1937, though he too belongs more to the post-war era, as does another Swansea poet Vernon Watkins (1906–67).
Read more about this topic: Anglo-Welsh Poetry
Famous quotes containing the words twentieth century, early, twentieth and/or century:
“Doubt, it seems to me, is the central condition of a human being in the twentieth century.”
—Salman Rushdie (b. 1947)
“I doubt that I would have taken so many leaps in my own writing or been as clear about my feminist and political commitments if I had not been anointed as early as I was. Some major form of recognition seems to have to mark a woman’s career for her to be able to go out on a limb without having her credentials questioned.”
—Ruth Behar (b. 1956)
“... the nineteenth century believed in science but the twentieth century does not. Not.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“The great man knew not that he was great. It took a century or two for that fact to appear. What he did, he did because he must; it was the most natural thing in the world, and grew out of the circumstances of the moment. But now, every thing he did, even to the lifting of his finger or the eating of bread, looks large, all-related, and is called an institution.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)