‘“Tantalizing Vagueness”: Intimacy and Distance in Edward Thomas’s Poetry’ with a practice-by-research poetry collection, ‘The Things I Could Not Say’.

Abstract Edward Thomas’s poems employ deliberate stylistic techniques to make them tantalisingly vague and enticing and puzzling for readers. A holistic exploration of these aspects gives insight into how poets can create compelling and satisfying poems. However, writing is, to some extent, an unconscious act, and Thomas’s techniques have bled into my poetry collection, ‘The Things I Could Not Say’, rather than being methodically copied. Four chapters investigate how Thomas’s poems are tantalisingly vague, and play with intimacy and distance. Chapter 1 explores how Thomas writes about nature, and what it reveals about his sense of self and belonging. Nature is problematic for Thomas, and the speaker in ‘The Things I Could Not Say’, but it also provides clarity and solace. Chapter 2 analyses Thomas’s imagery, and how his speakers learn from their environment. Thomas’s speakers’ attentiveness and connection with nature make his poems tender and intimate. ‘The Things I Could Not Say’ also employs detailed observation and imagery to create immediacy. Chapter 3 examines the effect of Thomas’s different narrative viewpoints when writing about loved ones, strangers, and fleeting infatuations. Thomas and I alter our speakers’ viewpoints to distance readers or to lure them in. Some speakers remain elusive in their intimacy. A speaker’s initial remoteness can heighten the intimacy when they become more personal. Thomas and I dissolve the ‘I’ to convey our speakers’ immersion in the moment, and our need for escape. Chapter 4 considers how common speech can quickly create intimacy with the reader. However, unconvincing speech can draw too much attention to poems as constructs. Thomas’s common speech is more intricate and subtle than it may initially seem. At times, Thomas’s syntax prevents his speakers’ voices from sounding natural, but at other times, they are so understated that they disarm the reader. These areas, and Thomas’s critical ideas, inform how the speaker in ‘The Things I Could Not Say’, like Thomas’s speakers, can be seen, but not too seen.<p></p>

Author dc:creator

• Suzanne Conway-Livesey (21037796)

• Edward Thomas
• Poetry
• Nature Writing
• Intimacy
• Distance
• 'Tantalizing Vagueness'
• Intimacy and Distance
• Narrative Viewpoint
• Common Speech
• Metaphor
• Imagery
• Nature
• Self-consciousness
• Writing Process
• Creativity
• First World War
• Existentialist
• The Self
• Nature Imagery
• Lineation
• Critics
• Infatuations
• Love
• Edward Thomas's Poetry
• Edward Thomas's Criticism
• Edward Thomas's Prose
• Richard Jefferies
• Denise Levertov
• Edna Longley
• Guy Cuthbertson
• Lucy Newlyn
• Michael Kirkham
• Jonathan Kertzer
• The Things I Could Not Say
• Writing Poems
• Poetic Craft
• 'Bite the day to the core'
• 'The Glory'
• 'Beauty'
• 'The Owl'
• 'Interval'
• 'Fifty Faggots'
• 'The sun used to shine'
• 'Parting'
• 'Liberty'
• 'And you, Helen'
• 'Sowing'
• 'Digging' ('Today I think')
• ‘In Memoriam (Easter, 1915)’
• 'The Lane'
• ‘Some eyes condemn’
• ‘But these things also’
• ‘I may come near loving you’
• 'Roads'
• ‘Tall Nettles’
• ‘Celandine’
• ‘Sedge-Warblers’
• ‘Like the touch of rain’
• ‘As the team’s head-brass’
• ‘The Trumpet’
• ‘What shall I give?’
• ‘What will they do?’
• 'Rain'
• ‘It rains’

Statement dc:rights

• All rights reserved
• Open Access after 2031-03-30

Identifier

10779/exe.31867747.v1

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oai:figshare.com:article/31867747