David Jones, modernism, and the Middle Ages

My thesis examines the relationship between Modernism and medieval culture in the poetry of David Jones (1895–1974). I argue that Jones's treatment of the Middle Ages is an important response to the cultural transformations of modernity, forging a vital link to the west's pre-modern past while anticipating post-modern responses to culture and history.; In my introductory chapter, I explore important historical and cultural backgrounds for David Jones's medievalism. Among the most important of these are his Pre-Raphaelite inheritance and his crucial relationship with the cultural historian, Christopher Dawson. After discussing Jones's understanding of history and tradition, the chapter concludes with a discussion of the importance of medieval and neo-Thomist aesthetics for the Modernism of David Jones and James Joyce, and an exploration of the importance of medieval form for Jones's poetry, Joyce's Finnegans Wake, and the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins.; My chapter on In Parenthesis (1937) explores the ways in which David Jones attempts to forge continuities with the past through his allusive interpretation of three key medieval texts, the early Welsh elegies of Y Gododdin, Sir Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur , and the Welsh tales collected in The Mabinogion. In my two chapters on The Anathemata (1952), I discuss the importance of Spengler's view of the medieval era and of Joyce's language for Jones's understanding of the importance of culture and site in the Middle Ages. I also show how Jones interprets the culture of early medieval Europe in his portrait of Gwenhwyfar, contrasting his portrayal with that of William Morris. The final chapter examines how Jones's Roman poems antipate the Middle Ages, and attempts to demonstrate the importance of William Blake for Jones's later Arthurian fragments, collected in The Sleeping Lord (1974). After a detailed exploration of how these poems draw upon early Welsh literature and history, I conclude by considering Jones's portrayal of Launcelot in his Mass poems, and by showing how The Book of Balaam's Ass uses the Middle Ages to critique modernity's calculating perspective on reality.