This paragraph introduces the concept of "qun-ji" (group-self), derived from Yan Fu's translation of *On Liberty* as *Qun Ji Quan Jie Lun*, referring to the relationship between society and the individual; it reviews Cochrane's view of Thomas as a voice for marginalized peoples, noting its limitation to single poems; it explains that this paper will systematically examine the 19 Iago Prytherch poems, exploring archetypes and group-self relations; it mentions that the poems span from the 1940s to the 1970s, concentrating in the 1950s and 1960s; and it emphasizes Thomas's ambivalent attitude toward Prytherch and his multi-perspective narrative, which creates a state of flux between subject and object, national group and small self.

Archetypal Construction of Positive and Negative Aspects

This section explores the contradictory attitude of positive and negative aspects presented by R.S. Thomas in shaping the peasant figure of Iago Prytherch and its causes. From the positive perspective, Prytherch is constructed as an archetype deeply integrated with the natural world: he demonstrates indomitable labor qualities through everyday images such as "waste places," "sheep," and "sugar beet," with his "sweat" and "cattle-stench" constituting an assault on artificial refinement, becoming a "stronghold" that "defends the race." Thomas deliberately employs dissonance and stress, reinforcing this figure's primitive vitality and ethnic bond through the mutual reinforcement of sound and meaning. From the negative perspective, the poet also reveals his spiritual poverty: the "empty mind" in *A Peasant* already hints at fear, while *Too Late* further degrades him to a "dog" following "the whistle of the pound," criticizing his degeneration of exchanging freedom for profit. This contradiction stems from dual dimensions: in terms of personal creative intention, Thomas both sympathizes with the villagers' diligence in clinging to their native land and is disappointed by their cultural indifference; in terms of external social context, Prytherch's "intellectual poverty" is actually the inevitable result of being enslaved by modern society and deprived of leisure. Ultimately, Prytherch is both a labor archetype transcending the individual and a vehicle for the poet's denunciation of Welsh people sacrificing their cultural heritage to cater to the machine age.

Life Writing of Self and Other in Fusion

This section explores how R.S. Thomas achieves life writing of self and other in fusion through flexible shifts in narrative perspective in the "Iago Prytherch poems." Over several decades, Thomas continuously shapes the peasant figure of Prytherch through multiple personae including "he," "you," and "I," making him both the poet's mirror-self and a bearer of Welsh cultural memory and universal human destiny. In key poems such as *The Dark Well*, Thomas transforms Prytherch from an early object of criticism into a spiritual guide, activating cultural memory through the technique of "repetition," making Prytherch a communicable symbol in Frye's sense. This narrative strategy embodies Thomas's transcendence of Cartesian subject philosophy—he no longer subordinates mental activity to physical activity, but explores the essence of life in the dialectical relationship between "group" and "self": Prytherch as "the otherness of oneself" is both a medium for the poet's self-examination and a bridge connecting individual experience with universal human value. Thomas ultimately elevates personalized emotional writing to philosophical reflection on good and evil, the value of life, and the essence of existence.

Value Reckoning of Coexisting Disorder and Order

This section explores how R.S. Thomas seeks order in a disordered world through value reckoning in the "Iago Prytherch poems." The poet's disappointed expectations after moving from Manafon to Eglwys-fach intensified his material and spiritual dual solitude, plunging him into disillusionment brought by the transition between old and new worlds. Facing this state of disorder, Thomas turned to Kantian philosophy for solutions, using "the starry heavens" and "the moral law" as references in *The Green Categories*, regarding Prytherch's physical labor following natural laws as a source of certainty to combat uncertainty in the spiritual world. The poet suspends personal emotion, emphasizing the life order manifested through the highest good achieved by Prytherch through physical labor, which becomes a representative of certainty and a model for self-criticism. As shown in *The Servant*, Thomas rarely admits his debt to Prytherch, learning from his patience and loyalty to the earth. Wynn Thomas points out that Prytherch should rather be understood as the poet's "great practice of mystification," whose natural laws followed are both local and universal. With group-self thinking as the criterion, Thomas reconstructs readers' thinking about life value and order through Prytherch, opening from individual emotion toward universal humanity, deeply investigating the structural causes of Welsh social upheaval, and manifesting profound reflection on the essence of human existence.