[David Jones's conversion to Catholicism in 1921] seems to have come about not through deep psychic struggle, not through pangs of conscience or intense sense of personal need, but through aesthetic theory. It was deep intellectual curiosity and critical investigation of the origins and continuing meaning of the arts, rather than concern for the soul or eternity, which brought Jones to his decision…. [His] Catholicism is secondary to his Welshness, though the two are mutually complementary and integrated wholly in his art. All of Jones's life and work was to be directed to the fulfilling of his vision of Catholic ideas in art; his poetry, particularly that following In Parenthesis, is a tenacious and dedicated affirmation of his Catholic subscription. (pp. 19-20)

[The essay "The Myth of Arthur" is a major piece] and displays erudition and scholarship of a uniquely imaginative variety. That is, Jones is concerned not merely...