 The change can be linked to the nationalist fervour generated by Saunders Lewis and the burning of the Bombing School on the Llŷn Peninsula in 1936, along with a sense of crisis generated by World War II.In poetry R. S. Thomas (1913–2000) was the most important figure throughout the second half of the twentieth century.He "did not learn the Welsh language until he was 30 and wrote all his poems in English".