Full Description
Drawing on new archival discoveries, this book presents an authoritative reconstruction of David Jones's The Grail Mass, the unfinished and unpublished project from which came both his masterpiece The Anathemata - a work described by W.H. Auden as 'one of the most important poems of our times' - and The Sleeping Lord and other fragments, his final collection. With detailed commentary on the development and reconstruction of the text, this edition provides a full picture of Jones's literary endeavours over the second half of his life and further establishes his status as a major figure in the first wave of British modernist writers alongside T.S. Eliot and James Joyce.
In addition to the text of The Grail Mass, this edition includes a number of unpublished fragments by Jones that emerged from this larger project, complete with textual commentaries.
Contents
Introduction
Part One: The Grail Mass
A.) On Reading The Grail Mass: a commentary on the text's development, fragmentation, and reconstruction
B.) Text of The Grail Mass
Part Two: A True Fragment, An Extraction, and A Variant
A.) The Roman Dinner Conversation (Section XIV)
A.1) A Commentary on The Roman Dinner Conversation
A.2) Text of The Roman Dinner Conversation
B.) Extraction from Keel Ram Stauros
B.1) A Commentary on The Extraction from Keel Ram Stauros
B.2) Text of The Extraction from Keel Ram Stauros
C.) The BBC Variant of The Hunt
C.1) A Commentary on the BBC variant of The Hunt
C.2) Text of the BBC variant of The Hunt
Part Three: Origins and Endings:
A.) The Book of Balaam's Ass
A.1) A Commentary on The Book of Balaam's Ass
A.2) Text of The Book of Balaam's Ass
B.) The Absolom Mass
B.1) A Commentary on The Absolom Mass
B.2) Text of The Absolom Mass
C.) The Kensington Mass
C.1) A Commentary on The Kensington Mass
C.2) Text of The Kensington Mass
D.) Under Arcturus
D.1) A Commentary on Under Arcturus
D.2) Text of Under Arcturus
Notes
Afterword: The Grail Mass, The Anathemata, and The Sleeping Lord
Appendix A: The Editing of The Grail Mass
Bibliography
Index
