Jones, Thomas Gwynn (1871–1949)

Welsh poet. He won the National Eisteddfod chair at Bangor in 1902 with ‘Ymadawiad Arthur’ (‘The Passing of Arthur’), a poem which, for its application of a modern creative mind to traditional strict metre, heralded a new era in Welsh literature, and won again in 1909 with ‘Gwlad y Bryniau’ (‘The Land of the Hills’); from then his place in Welsh literature was assured. He also wrote some volumes of essays, several plays, and a book in English on Welsh folklore.

Among his other works are a critical edition of the poems of Tudur Aled (1926), translations of Faust and Macbeth, an anthology of Irish poems translated into Welsh. A selection of his poems was published in 1926, and of poems and essays in six volumes (1932–37. His final collection, Y Dwymyn (The Fever) was published in 1944.

He was born in Gwyndy Uchaf, Denbighshire, and became lecturer and professor in Welsh literature at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth. His first book of verse was published when he was little more than a boy, and his second volume, Gwlad y Gan, appeared in 1902, after he had already published two Welsh novels.