The Dying Gaul and Other Writings

Description

'To open a book by David Jones is to walk in the ley lines of his dreaming, a dreaming offered to believer and non-believer alike. Like Blake, John Clare and D H Lawrence, he is one of Albion's great secret imaginers, his prophetic work radiant with "the splendour of forms yet to come".' New Statesman The Dying Gaul, David Jones's second collection of prose, was published posthumously in 1978. In these essays, Jones explores his deep connection to Wales through its culture, symbolism and through the notion of heroic defeat. He brings particular focus to the question of visual art, not only in Wales, but also in England and in its relationship to war. The collection concludes with a meditation on Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the final substantive piece that David Jones would write, and one which would find him at his most reflective and redemptive.

David Jones (1895-1974) was born in Kent. In 1915, then an art student, he went to war with the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, where he fought in the battles of the Somme and Ypres. In 1922 he began a long association with the artist Eric Gill. In Parenthesis, based on Jones's experiences in World War I, was published in 1937, followed in 1952 by The Anathmata and The Sleeping Lord in 1974. David Jones's works are exhibited at the Tate Museum and the National Museum of Wales.