Ritual, Place, and Pilgrimage: A Topological Approach to David Jones's The Anathemata

David Jones's poem The Anathemata constructs Britain as the intersection between sites and legends. Jones's Catholic sacramental theory of man-as-artist can be combined productively with topological theories of place proposed by Doreen Massey, Jonathon Z. Smith, and Artemis Leontis. The material maps that Jones refers to in his text, including those kept at the David Jones Archive in the National Library of Wales, allow us to better trace the movement between sites in his text. Together, these approaches show how Jones's poem utilizes cultural deposits (both geographical and legendary) in the formation of "place."