The Airy Tomb (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: R. S. Thomas
- First Published: 1946
- Type of Work: Narrative
- Genres: Poetry, Narrative poetry
- Subjects: Parents and children, Nature, Schools or school life, Farms, farmers, or farming, Death or dying, Loneliness, Life, philosophy of, Life and death, Mortality, Tombs or graves
The Poem
“The Airy Tomb” begins with the phrase “Twm was a dunce at school” and describes in the first stanza what Twm cared for instead of school: the noise and motion of birds and the land around him. Though the first stanza contains the word “I,” thus establishing the presence of a speaker who is narrating the poem, the speaker remains largely absent from the poem, occasionally asking the reader for a judgment but for the most part describing what Twm did and what his world was like. The language is simple, consisting of phrases with nouns and strong verbs rather...
[The entire page is 1462 words long]
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