occupying new territory Llywelyn-Williams’s concern in ‘Nothing Will Save Us but Our Hearts’ is that
‘there’s no love today|in the bosom of this senseless generation’.^31 In all
three poems belonging to 1940, Llywelyn-Williams presents a generation dis-
illusioned and frustrated, their feelings fuelled by the seeming impasse of the
Phoney War.
But ‘Cui Bono?’ also touches upon a theme of Second World War literature that
originated in the 1930s: namely, the progression of lies and deceit, as described by
Piers Brendon:
[T]he Depression years witnessed the dissemination of falsehood on a hitherto unpreceden-
ted scale. Never had science and art so combined to promote earthly powers. Goebbels and
others developed novel techniques of thought control. New media such as radio and talking
pictures were mobilised to sway the masses. Leaders used aircraft to grab the limelight and
they emblazoned their messages on the sky. Dictators imposed their version of the truth by
means of dogma and terror.... Facts were moulded like plasticine into the approved shape,
whether Communist, Aryan, Fascist or imperial.^32
‘[V]ain the asking, and the answer will never come,’ says Llywelyn-Williams in
‘Cui Bono?’ Previously inTir Newyddhe had complained about ‘the old trick of
playing with terminology, by saying, for example, that ‘‘National Socialism’’ had
triumphed in Germany (Hitler made much of that title)’.^33 ‘The Airman’ also
refers to ‘the diverse lies of the peevish speeches|delivered beneath the banners’
seal’, and in an elegy to his friend, Raymond Atcheson, who had introduced Alun
Llywelyn-Williams to the Auden generation but who had died in 1938, he refers
to him ‘denying the fellowship|before the lie overflowed’.^34 The dishonesty that
Auden had identified as defining the period seemed to have contaminated language
itself, the poet’s most basic material, a realization that Llywelyn-Williams would
creatively exploit in his later poems.
Auden had also insisted that ‘no one exists alone....Wemustloveoneanother
or die.’^35 Llywelyn-Williams saw matters in a similar light: ‘because there’s no
love today|in the bosom of this senseless generation...nothing will save us
but our hearts’.^36 Significantly,Cerddi 1934–1942is framed by love poems: the
collection opens with ‘Cefn Cwm Bychan’, written in 1934, and closes with ‘Love’s
Unity’, written in 1942, by which time the lovers had formally acknowledged
their commitment through marriage in 1938. The different perspectives contained
within the poems is revealing. The opening poem emphasizes their insignificance
as mere mortals: ‘you and I, girl, who are we|thatGodshouldrememberus,or
(^31) Llywelyn-Williams, ‘Nothing Will SaveUs but Our Hearts’, trans. Clancy, inLight in the
Gloom, 122.
(^32) Piers Brendon,The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s(London: Jonathan Cape, 2000), p. xvi.
(^33) Llywelyn-Williams, ‘Nodiadau’r Golygydd’,Tir Newydd, 10 (Nov. 1937), 3.
(^34) Llywelyn-Williams, ‘Remembering a Friend’, trans. Clancy, inLight in the Gloom, 125.
(^35) Auden, ‘September 1, 1939’, inEnglish Auden, 246.
(^36) Llywelyn-Williams, ‘Nothing Will Save Us, 122.