An Edition of R.S. Thomas's Letters to Raymond Garlick, 1951-1999, with a Critical Introduction and Full Notes

我的研究工作是针对20世纪最优秀的英语诗人之一R.S.托马斯（1913-2000）写给同为诗人和学者的雷蒙德·加里克博士（1926-）的信件的出版，雷蒙德·加里克博士本人也是一位杰出的文化人物。这些信件包括155封信件，时间跨度从1951年到1999年。在他去世前不久，R.S.托马斯告诉我，雷蒙德·加里克是他唯一一个经常就文学和文化问题进行详细通信的人。鉴于这一论断，重要的是要注意到，与研究背景有关的是，我已经与威尔士一家领先的出版社Gomer出版社签订了合同，我计划出版的这本书在R.S.托马斯研究领域将是独一无二的。毫无疑问，这些信件是一份至关重要的历史和文学文件，它照亮了英国和爱尔兰半个世纪以来革命性的文化生活，同时也引用了更广泛的国际关注，如环保问题和核裁军。在这种情况下，公平地说，没有R.S.托马斯的评论或传记研究可以安全地撰写，而不求助于这些信件。综上所述，主要目的是出版一卷《R.S.托马斯：1951-1999年给雷蒙德·加里克的信》，以揭示这位大诗人的重要新信息。研究本身的目的和目标将包括(i)呈现这一庞大的手稿信件语料库的准确转录，以前未发表，实际上迄今为止未知；（ii）提供全面的注释，充分解释和说明这些极具典故意味的信件；（iii）特别澄清和解释/鉴于雷蒙德·加里克方面的信件没有保存下来/构成这些信件背后进一步背景的广泛思想、观点和事件的额外维度；（四）从这些信件中可以看出，托马斯和加利克的文化观点往往是截然不同的，这些观点具有普遍的文化意义；进一步扩大背景化进程，提供实质性的批判性导言，将信函中提出的问题与更广泛的国家和国际文化因素联系起来。因此，在出版和阐明这些信件时，总体目标将是在主要来源和诗人的批评接受之间的联系点上，以学术和可理解的形式添加至关重要的新材料。潜在的应用和好处值得注意的是，R.S.托马斯的作品受到了学术和普通读者的一致好评。除了已经提到的方面，我的书信集还将为托马斯半个多世纪以来的全部作品提供新的、令人兴奋的见解，不仅加深我们对个别诗歌和散文的理解和欣赏，而且加深我们对他作为一个主要作家在半个世纪的特定时期如何看待自己作为诗人的角色的理解和欣赏。我的研究也将对R.S.托马斯作品中复杂的（自动的）传记维度提供新的理解（对于一个通常被认为是隐居的诗人来说至关重要），此外，还将为雷蒙德·加里克自己的诗歌和散文提供新的视角（例如，这本书将首次证明，加里克最重要的几首诗实际上是对这些信件的回应）。这些重要的发现将通过出版的卷本身，当然，也通过我在英国和国外教育机构的讲座、研讨会和会议论文，以及通过广播和电视采访，尽可能广泛地向公众提供。

The Context of the Research My research work is towards the publication of the letters of R.S. Thomas (1913-2000), one of the finest poets in English of the twentieth century, to fellow poet and scholar Dr Raymond Garlick (1926-), himself a distinguished cultural figure. The correspondence, which is a substantial collection of 155 letters, spans the years 1951-1999. Shortly before his death R.S. Thomas informed me that Raymond Garlick was the only person with whom he had corresponded regularly and at any length about literary and cultural matters. In the light of this assertion, it is important to note in relation to the context of the research that the projected volume / for which I have already been offered a contract by one of Wales's leading publishing houses, Gomer Press / will be unique in the field of R.S. Thomas studies. The correspondence is without doubt a crucially important historical and literary document, illuminating as it does a revolutionary half-century in the cultural life of the UK and Ireland, while also referencing wider international concerns such as green issues and nuclear disarmament. In this context it is fair to say that no critical or biographical study of R.S. Thomas could safely be written without recourse to these letters.Aims and Objectives To summarize the points noted in full above, the chief objective is the publication of a volume / R.S. Thomas: Letters to Raymond Garlick, 1951-1999 / that will shed important new light on this major poet. Aims and objectives in the course of the research itself will include (i) presenting an accurate transcription of this large corpus of manuscript letters, previously unpublished and indeed hitherto unknown; (ii) providing comprehensive Notes which will fully explain and contextualize these highly allusive letters; (iii) clarifying and explaining in particular / given that Raymond Garlick's side of the correspondence has not survived / the extra dimension of a wide body of ideas, opinions and events that constitute a further context behind these letters; (iv) bringing out the general cultural significance of the often radically divergent cultural visions of Thomas and Garlick, as attested by these letters; (v) enlarging the process of contextualization further by providing a substantial critical Introduction that will place the issues raised in the correspondence in relation to wider cultural factors, both national and international. In publishing and elucidating these letters, the overall objective will therefore be to add crucially important new material / in scholarly and accessible form / at the point of contact between primary sources and the critical reception of the poet. Potential Applications and Benefits It is important to note that R.S. Thomas's work is acclaimed by the academic and general reader alike. In addition to the aspects already noted, my edition of the letters will offer new and exciting insights into R.S. Thomas's oeuvre over half a century, deepening our understanding and appreciation not only of individual poems and prose pieces but also of how as a major writer he perceived his role as a poet at particular points over that half-century. My research will also offer a fresh understanding of the sophisticated (auto)biographical dimension of R.S. Thomas's work (crucial in the case of a poet generally regarded as reclusive), and, in addition, will throw new light on Raymond Garlick's own poetry and prose (the volume will demonstrate for the first time, for instance, that several of Garlick's most important poems are in fact responses to these very letters). These important discoveries will be made available to as wide a public as possible / through the published volume itself, of course, but also by means of my lectures, seminars and conference papers on the correspondence at educational establishments UK-wide and abroad, and through radio and television interviews.