ABSTRACT
Both Lawrence and Powys search back to the ancient world: Lawrence to the Etruscans and the mythological traditions of the Aztecs, Powys to the Greeks and the Celtic records of The Mabinogion. Little enough divides Powys's rich deployment of Biblical and Greek mythology in his recently published poetic narrative Lucifer from the prose descriptions of his novels. A Glastonbury Romance was a great act of courage; and Powys's Autobiography, in which he claims to recognize the presence of the sadistic instinct within himself, was an even greater. The novels of Welsh history, Owen Glendower and Porius, completed Powys's weightier works. Powys writes from a vast comprehension of human and beyond-human powers which exists as a challenge to the contemporary intellect. Powys writes with simplicity, kindliness and humour; and with humility; and courtesy. Despite his almost unprecedented imaginative equipment, he appears to regard his every least reader as his equal.
