Edward Thomas was a British poet, born on the
3rd of March, 1878, to a Welsh family in Surrey. He went to school in
London and studied History at Oxford. becoming a book reviewer, and then
a writer by the start of the First World War, having written the novel The Happy-go-lucky Morgans. He started to publish his poetry in 1914.
Edward married Helen Berenice Noble in 1899, and they had 1 son, Merfyn, and 2 daughters, Bronwen and Myfanwy. They moved to Sevenoaks in 1905, renting a cottage to W. H. Davies, a Welsh poet whose career Edward is said to have helped develop.
Edward was also close to the American poet Robert Frost, who encouraged Edward to focus on his poetry rather than critique, and whose poem ‘The Road Not Taken,’ is meant to be influenced by Edward’s indecision. There are 77 surviving letters between Robert Frost and Edward Thomas between December 1913 and April 1917.
In Queer Wales, Andrew Webb writes of the ‘Welshness and non-heteronormativity’ of Edward Thomas’s writing, including this correspondence, which Webb views as a non-heteronormative relationship and collaboration. Though Webb writes of the queerness of Edward Thomas, this is not necessarily to say Edward Thomas himself was queer as this is an analysis of his writing, as his non-heteronormativity does not make him non-heterosexual, though the possibility is there.
Webb’s queer analysis of Thomas is from a literary standpoint not a historical one. Webb writes, ‘Queer, as a critical approach, aims to complicate and deconstruct received understandings of supposedly ‘natural’ identities.’ Queer as a critical approach also has value in the study of history. Webb’s analysis of Edward’s writing, his prose and his correspondence, such as his letters to Frost, registers ‘a queerness’ certainly has merit as an analysis of Edward Thomas himself and of his writing.
Similarly, Edward’s own use of ‘queer’ may have had an entirely different meaning to our modern usage of queer, it is also a valid analysis of Edward’s poem ‘The Other’ (1914) that it is ‘a coded expression’ of non-heteronormativity:
For images, and more, see Cardiff University’s Edward Thomas Archive.
Edward married Helen Berenice Noble in 1899, and they had 1 son, Merfyn, and 2 daughters, Bronwen and Myfanwy. They moved to Sevenoaks in 1905, renting a cottage to W. H. Davies, a Welsh poet whose career Edward is said to have helped develop.
Edward was also close to the American poet Robert Frost, who encouraged Edward to focus on his poetry rather than critique, and whose poem ‘The Road Not Taken,’ is meant to be influenced by Edward’s indecision. There are 77 surviving letters between Robert Frost and Edward Thomas between December 1913 and April 1917.
In Queer Wales, Andrew Webb writes of the ‘Welshness and non-heteronormativity’ of Edward Thomas’s writing, including this correspondence, which Webb views as a non-heteronormative relationship and collaboration. Though Webb writes of the queerness of Edward Thomas, this is not necessarily to say Edward Thomas himself was queer as this is an analysis of his writing, as his non-heteronormativity does not make him non-heterosexual, though the possibility is there.
Webb’s queer analysis of Thomas is from a literary standpoint not a historical one. Webb writes, ‘Queer, as a critical approach, aims to complicate and deconstruct received understandings of supposedly ‘natural’ identities.’ Queer as a critical approach also has value in the study of history. Webb’s analysis of Edward’s writing, his prose and his correspondence, such as his letters to Frost, registers ‘a queerness’ certainly has merit as an analysis of Edward Thomas himself and of his writing.
Similarly, Edward’s own use of ‘queer’ may have had an entirely different meaning to our modern usage of queer, it is also a valid analysis of Edward’s poem ‘The Other’ (1914) that it is ‘a coded expression’ of non-heteronormativity:
“But ‘twas hereEdward Thomas died on the 9th of April, 1917, shortly after arriving in France, in the first hour of the Battle of Arras.
They asked me if I did not pass
Yesterday this way? ‘Not you? Queer.’
‘Who then? and slept here?’ I felt fear.
For images, and more, see Cardiff University’s Edward Thomas Archive.
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