Cultural Dynamics

Chapter 12 explores Jones’s visualisation of cultural heritage as a Bridge between past and present and his belief that Welsh culture held an integral position in British and Western tradition. This chapter traces the ways in which Jones embedded this concept of cultural inheritance into his artistic works—including The Lord of Venedotia (1948) and CARA WALLIA DERELICTA (1959)—and established it as a structural principle in his poetry, for example in The Sleeping Lord (1974). It interrogates Jones’s attempt to foreground the unique nature of the relationship between Rome and Wales so as to justify the continuance of Welsh culture in modernity before turning to a discussion of the crucial role he allotted to poets in a period of decline. In this construction, Jones felt it was his duty to preserve and rejuvenate Welsh heritage for the benefit of all the inhabitants of Britain and all who share in the Western cultural tradition.