W. H. Davies - Literary Style

Literary Style

Stonesifer likens the quality of Davies' prose, with its often childlike realism, directness and simplicity, to that of Defoe and George Borrow, while Davies' style was described by Shaw as that of "a genuine innocent".

For his honorary degree in 1926, Davies was introduced to the assembly at the University of Wales by Professor W. D. Thomas, M.A. with a citation that may still serve as a valid summary of Davies' literary themes, style and tone: "A Welshman, a poet of distinction, and a man in whose work much of the peculiarly Welsh attitude to life is expressed with singular grace and sincerity. He combines a vivid sense of beauty with affection for the homely, keen zest for life and adventure with a rare appreciation of the common, universal pleasures, and finds in those simple things of daily life a precious quality, a dignity and a wonder that consecrate them. Natural, simple and unaffected, he is free from sham in feeling and artifice in expression. He has re-discovered for those who have forgotten them, the joys of simple nature. He has found romance in that which has become commonplace; and of the native impulses of an unspoilt heart, and the responses of a sensitive spirit, he has made a new world of experience and delight. He is a lover of life, accepting it and glorying in it. He affirms values that were falling into neglect, and in an age that is mercenary reminds us that we have the capacity for spiritual enjoyment."

Somewhat surprisingly, his great friend and mentor, Edward Thomas, likened Davies to Wordsworth, writing: "He can write commonplace or inaccurate English, but it is also natural to him to write, such as Wordsworth wrote, with the clearness, compactness and felicity which make a man think with shame how unworthily, through natural stupidity or uncertainty, he manages his native tongue. In subtlety he abounds, and where else today shall we find simplicity like this?"