Dylan Thomas

For other uses, see Dylan Thomas (disambiguation).

Dylan Thomas
Born	(1914-10-27)27 October 1914 Uplands, Swansea, Glamorgan, Wales
Died	9 November 1953(1953-11-09) (aged 39) New York City, United States
Occupation	Poet and writer
Literary movement	Modernism, Neo-romanticism
Spouse	Caitlin Macnamara (m. 1937–1953, his death)
Children	Llewelyn Edouard Thomas (1939–2000) Aeronwy Bryn Thomas (1943–2009) Colm Garan Hart Thomas (b. 1949)

Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953) was a Welsh poet and writer whose works include the poems, "Do not go gentle into that good night", "And death shall have no dominion", the "play for voices", Under Milk Wood, and stories and radio broadcasts such as A Child's Christmas in Wales and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog. He became popular in his lifetime, and remained popular after his death; partly due to his larger than life character, and his reputation for drinking to excess.

Thomas was born in Swansea, Wales in 1914. An undistinguished student, he left school at 16, becoming a journalist for a short time. Although many of his works appeared in print while a teenager, it was the publication of "Light breaks where no sun shines", published in 1934, that caught the attention of the literary world. While living in London, Thomas met Caitlin Macnamara whom he married in 1937. Their relationship was defined by alcoholism and was mutually destructive. In the early part of his marriage, Thomas and his family lived hand-to-mouth, settling in the Welsh fishing village of Laugharne.

Although Thomas was appreciated as a popular poet in his lifetime, he found earning a living as a writer difficult, which resulted in Thomas augmenting his income with readings and broadcasts. His radio recordings for the BBC during the latter half of the 1940s brought him a level of celebrity. In the 1950s Thomas travelled to America, where his readings brought him a level of fame, though his erratic behaviour and drinking worsened. His time in America cemented Thomas' legend, where he recorded to vinyl works such as "A Child's Christmas in Wales". During his fourth trip to New York in 1953 Thomas became gravely ill and fell into a coma from which he did not recover. Thomas died on 9 November 1953 and his body was returned to Wales where he was buried at the village churchyard in Laugharne.

Although writing exclusively in the English language, Thomas has been acknowledged as one of the most important Welsh poets of the 20th century. Noted for his original, rhythmic and ingenious use of words and imagery, Thomas' position as one of the great modern poets has been much discussed, though this has not tarnished his popularity amongst the general public, who found his work accessible.

Life and career

Early life

5 Cwmdonkin Drive, Swansea, birthplace of Dylan Thomas

Dylan Thomas was born in Swansea, in Wales, on 27 October 1914, to David John Thomas (1876–1952), a teacher, and Florence Hannah (née Williams) (1882–1958), a seamstress. His father had a first-class honours degree in English from University College, Aberystwyth and ambitions to rise above his position teaching English literature at the local grammar school. His only sister Nancy, (Nancy Marles 1906–1953) was nine years older. The children spoke only English though their parents were bilingual in English and Welsh, and David Thomas gave Welsh lessons at home. Thomas' father chose the name Dylan, which could be translated as "son of the sea", after Dylan ail Don, a character in The Mabinogion. His middle name, Marlais, was given in honour of his great-uncle, William Thomas, a Unitarian minister and poet whose bardic name was Gwilym Marles. Dylan, pronounced ˈdəlan (Dullan) in Welsh, caused his mother to worry he might be teased as the "dull one". When he broadcast on Welsh BBC, early in his career, he was introduced using this pronunciation. Thomas favoured the Anglicised pronunciation and gave instructions that it should be Dillan /ˈdɪlən/.

The red-brick semi-detached house at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive, in which Thomas was born and lived until he was 19, had been bought by his parents in the respectable area of the Uplands a few months before his birth. His childhood was spent in Swansea, with summer trips to Carmarthenshire to visit Fernhill, a dairy farm owned by his maternal aunt, Ann Jones, the memory of which is used for the 1945 lyrical poem "Fern Hill". Thomas had bronchitis and asthma in childhood and struggled with these throughout his life. It is considered that Thomas was indulged by his mother and enjoyed being coddled, a trait he carried into adulthood and he was skilful at gaining attention and sympathy. Thomas' formal education began at Mrs Hole's dame school a private school on Mirador Crescent, a few streets away from his home. He described his experience there in Quite Early One Morning:

Never was there such a dame school as ours, so firm and kind and smelling of galoshes, with the sweet and fumbled music of the piano lessons drifting down from upstairs to the lonely schoolroom, where only the sometimes tearful wicked sat over undone sums, or to repent a little crime — the pulling of a girl's hair during geography, the sly shin kick under the table during English literature.

Dylan Thomas Theatre, home of Swansea Little Theatre

In October 1925, Thomas enrolled at Swansea Grammar School for boys, in Mount Pleasant, where his father taught English. He was an undistinguished student who shied away from school preferring reading. In his first year one of his poems was published in the school's magazine and before he left he became its editor. During his final school years he began writing his poetry in notebooks, the first poem dated 27 April (1930), is entitled "Osiris, come to Isis". In 1931, when he was 16, Thomas left school to become a reporter for the South Wales Daily Post, only to leave under pressure 18 months later. Thomas continued to work as a freelance journalist for several years and during this time remained at Cwmdonkin Drive where he continued to add to his notebooks, amassing 200 poems in four books between 1930 and 1934. Of the 90 poems he published, half were written during these years.

In his free time, he joined the amateur dramatic group at the Little Theatre in Mumbles, visited the cinema in Uplands, took walks along Swansea Bay, and frequented Swansea's pubs, especially the Antelope and the Mermaid Hotels in Mumbles. In the Kardomah Café, close to the newspaper office in Castle Street, he met his creative contemporaries, including his friend the poet Vernon Watkins. The group of writers, musicians and artists became known as "The Kardomah Gang". In 1933, Thomas visited London for probably the first time.

1933–1939

Thomas was a teenager when many of the poems for which he became famous were published: "And death shall have no dominion", "Before I Knocked" and "The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower". "And death shall have no dominion" appeared in the New English Weekly in May 1933. When "Light breaks where no sun shines" appeared in The Listener in 1934, it caught the attention of three senior figures in literary London, T. S. Eliot, Geoffrey Grigson and Stephen Spender. They contacted Thomas and his first poetry volume, 18 Poems, was published in December 1934. 18 Poems was noted for its visionary qualities which led to critic Desmond Hawkins writing that the work was "the sort of bomb that bursts no more than once in three years". The volume was critically acclaimed and won a contest run by the Sunday Referee, netting him new admirers from the London poetry world, including Edith Sitwell and Edwin Muir. The anthology was published by Fortune Press, in part a vanity publisher that did not pay its writers and expected them to buy a certain number of copies themselves. A similar arrangement was used by other new authors including Philip Larkin. In 1936, his next collection Twenty-five Poems, published by J. M. Dent, also received much critical praise. In all, he wrote half his poems while living at Cwmdonkin Drive before moving to London. It was the time that Thomas' reputation for heavy drinking developed.

In spring 1936, Thomas met Caitlin Macnamara (b. 1913), a 22 year old blonde-haired, blue-eyed dancer of Irish descent. She had run away from home, intent on making a career in dance, and aged 18 joined the chorus line at the London Palladium. Introduced by Augustus John, Caitlin's lover, they met in The Wheatsheaf pub on Rathbone Place in London's West End. Laying his head in her lap, a drunken Thomas proposed. Thomas liked to comment that he and Caitlin were in bed together ten minutes after they first met. Although Caitlin initially continued her relationship with John, she and Thomas began a correspondence and in the second half of 1936 were courting. They married at the register office in Penzance, Cornwall on 11 July 1937. In spring 1938, they moved to Wales renting a cottage in the village of Laugharne, Carmarthenshire. Their first child, Llewelyn Edouard, was born on 30 January 1939.

By the late 1930s, Thomas was embraced as the "poetic herald" for a group of English poets, the New Apocalyptics. Thomas refused to align himself with them and declined to sign their manifesto. He later stated that he believed they were "intellectual muckpots leaning on a theory". Despite this, many of the group, including Henry Treece, modelled their work on Thomas.

Wartime, 1939–1945

In 1939 The Map of Love appeared as a collection of 16 poems and seven of the 20 short stories published by Thomas in magazines since 1934. Ten stories in his next book, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog (1940), were based less on lavish fantasy than The Map of Love and more on real life romances featuring himself in Wales. Sales of both books were poor, resulting in Thomas living on meagre fees from writing and reviewing. At this time he borrowed heavily from friends and acquaintances. Hounded by debtors, Thomas and his family left Laugharne in July 1940 and move to the home of critic John Davenport in Marshfield. There Thomas collaborated with Davenport on the satire The Death of the King's Canary, though due to fears of libel the work was not published until 1976.

At the outset of the Second World War, Thomas was worried about conscription and referred to his ailment as "an unreliable lung". Coughing sometimes confined him to bed and he had a history of bringing up blood and mucus. After initially seeking employment in a reserved occupation, he managed to be classified Grade III, which meant that he would be among the last to be called up for service. Saddened to see his friends enter active service, he continued drinking and struggled to support his family. He wrote begging letters to random literary figures asking for support, a plan he hoped would provide a long-term regular income. Thomas supplemented his income by writing scripts for the BBC in 1940 earning money and undertaking essential war work.

In February 1941, Swansea was bombed by the Luftwaffe in a "three nights' blitz". Castle Street was one of many streets that suffered badly; rows of shops, including the Kardomah Café, were destroyed. Thomas walked through the bombed-out shell of the town centre with his friend Bert Trick. Upset at the sight, he concluded: "Our Swansea is dead". Soon after the bombing raids, Thomas wrote a radio play, Return Journey Home, which described the café as being "razed to the snow". The play was first broadcast on 15 June 1947. The Kardomah Café reopened on Portland Street after the war.

In May 1941, Thomas and Caitlin moved to London, leaving their son with his grandmother at Blashford in Hampshire. Thomas hoped to find employment in the film industry and wrote to the director of the films division of the Ministry of Information (MOI). After being rebuffed he found work with Strand Films providing him with his first regular income since the Daily Post. Strand produced films for the MOI; Thomas scripted at least five films in 1942, This Is Colour (a history of the British dyeing industry) and New Towns For Old (on post-war reconstruction). These Are The Men (1943) was a more ambitious piece where Thomas' verse accompanies Leni Riefenstahl's footage of an early Nuremberg rally. Conquest of a Germ (1944) explored the use of early antibiotics in the fight against pnuemonia and tuberculosis. Our Country (1945) was a romantic tour of Britain set to Thomas' poetry.

In early 1943 Thomas began a relationship with Pamela Glendower, one of several affairs he had during his marriage. The affairs either ran out of steam or were halted after Caitlin discovered his infidelity. In March 1943 Caitlin gave birth to a daughter, Aeronwy in London. They lived in a run-down studio in Chelsea, made up of a single large room with a curtain to separate the kitchen.

In 1944, with the threat of German flying bombs on London, Thomas moved to the family cottage in Blaen Cwm near Llangain, where Thomas resumed writing poetry, completing "Holy Spring" and "Vision and Prayer". In September Thomas and Caitlin moved to New Quay in West Wales which inspired Thomas to pen the radio piece Quite Early One Morning, a sketch for his later work, Under Milk Wood. Of the poetry written at this time, of note is "Fern Hill", believed to have been started while living in New Quay, but completed at Blaen Cwm in the summer of 1945.

Broadcasting years 1945–1949

Although Thomas had previously written for the BBC, it was a minor source of income and the occurrences intermittent. In 1943 he wrote and recorded a fifteen minute talk entitled "Reminiscences of Childhood" for the Welsh BBC. In December 1944 he recorded Quite Early One Morning produced by Aneirin Talfan Davies again for the Welsh BBC but when Davies offered it for national broadcast it was turned down by BBC London.. On 31 August 1945 Quite Early One Morning was broadcast on the BBC Home Service, and in the three years beginning October 1945, Thomas made over a hundred broadcasts for the corporation. Thomas was employed not only for his poetry readings, but for discussions and critiques.

By late September 1945 the Thomases had left Wales and were living with various friends in London. The publication of Deaths and Entrances in 1946 was a turning point for Thomas. Poet and critic W. J. Turner commented in The Spectator, "This book alone, in my opinion, ranks him as a major poet".

Thomas' £5 writing shed in Laugharne, Carmarthenshire

In the second half of 1945, Thomas began reading for the BBC Radio programme, Book of Verse, broadcast weekly to the Far East providing Thomas with a regular income and bringing him into contact with Louis MacNeice, a congenial drinking companion whose advice Thomas cherished. On 29 September 1946, the BBC began transmitting the Third Programme, a high-culture network which provided opportunities for Thomas. Thomas appeared in the play Comus for Third Programme, the day after the network launched, and his rich, sonorous voice led to character parts, including the lead in Aeschylus' Agamemnon and Satan in an adaptation of Paradise Lost. Thomas remained a popular guest on radio talk shows for the BBC who regarded him as "useful should a younger generation poet be needed". Thomas had an uneasy relationship with BBC management and a staff job was never an option, with drinking cited as the problem. Despite this, Thomas became a familiar radio voice and within Britain was "in every sense a celebrity".

In May 1948 Thomas and his family moved to his final home, the Boat House at Laugharne purchased for him at a cost of £2,500 in April 1949 by Margaret Taylor, first wife of historian A. J. P. Taylor. Thomas acquired a garage a hundred yards from the house on a cliff ledge which he turned into his writing shed, and where he penned several of his most acclaimed poems. Just before moving into there, Thomas rented "Pelican House" opposite his regular drinking den, Brown's Hotel for his parents who lived there from 1949 until 1953. It was there that his father died and the funeral was held. Caitlin gave birth to their third child, a boy named Colm Garan Hart on 25 July 1949.

American tours, 1950–1953

John Brinnin invited Thomas to New York, where in 1950 they embarked on a lucrative three-month tour of arts centres and campuses. The tour, which began in front of an audience of a thousand at the Kaufmann Auditorium of the Poetry Centre in New York, took in about 40 venues. During the tour Thomas was invited to many parties and functions and on several occasions became drunk, going out of his way to shock people and was a difficult guest. Thomas drank before some of his readings, though it is argued he may have pretended to be more intoxicated than he actually was. The writer Elizabeth Hardwick recalled how intoxicating a performer he was and how the tension would build before a performance: "Would he arrive only to break down on the stage? Would some dismaying scene take place at the faculty party? Would he be offensive, violent, obscene?" Caitlin said in her memoir, "Nobody ever needed encouragement less, and he was drowned in it."

Thomas undertook a second tour of the United States in 1952, this time with Caitlin after she had discovered he had been unfaithful on his earlier trip. They drank heavily, and Thomas began to suffer with gout and lung problems. The second tour was the most intensive of the four, taking in 46 engagements. The trip also resulted in Thomas recording his first poetry to vinyl, which was released in America by Caedmon Records later that year.

In April 1953 Thomas returned alone for a third tour. He performed a "work in progress" version of Under Milk Wood, solo, for the first time at Harvard University on 3 May. A week later the work was performed with a full cast at the Poetry Centre in New York. He met the deadline only after being locked in a room by Brinnin's assistant, Liz Reitell, and was still editing the script on the afternoon of the performance, its last lines were handed to the actors as they were putting on their make-up. In the wake of the play's US success, the composer Stravinsky invited Thomas to write a libretto for an opera. Thomas spent the last nine or ten days of his third tour in New York mostly in the company of Reitell, with whom he had an affair. During this time Thomas fractured his arm falling down a flight of stairs when drunk. He was seen by Reitell's doctor, Milton Feltenstein, who put his arm in plaster and treated him for gout and gastritis.

After returning home, Thomas worked on Under Milk Wood in Wales, before sending the original manuscript to the BBC's Douglas Cleverdon on 15 October 1953. It was copied and returned to Thomas, who lost it in a pub in London and required a duplicate to take to America. Thomas flew to the States on 19 October 1953 for his final tour. He died in New York before the BBC could record the play. Richard Burton starred in the first broadcast in 1954, and was joined by Elizabeth Taylor in a subsequent film. In 1954 the play won the Prix Italia for literary or dramatic programmes.

Thomas' last collection Collected Poems, 1934–1952, published when he was 38, won the Foyle poetry prize. Reviewing the volume, critic Philip Toynbee declared that "Thomas is the greatest living poet in the English language". One of Thomas' last poems, "Do not go gentle into that good night", was a villanelle to his father, who died from pneumonia just before Christmas 1952. In the first few months of 1953 his sister died from liver cancer, one of his patrons took an overdose of sleeping pills, three friends died at an early age and Caitlin had another abortion.

Death

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

From "And death shall have no dominion"
Twenty-five Poems (1936)

Thomas arrived in New York on 20 October 1953 to undertake another tour of poetry reading and talks, organised by Brinnin. He was ill, complaining of chest trouble and gout while still in Britain, though there is no record he received medical treatment for either condition. He was in a melancholy mood about the trip and his health was poor, relying on an inhaler to aid his breathing and there were reports that he was suffering from blackouts. His visit to say goodbye to BBC producer Philip Burton, a few days before he left for New York, was interrupted by a blackout. On his last night in London he had another, in the company of fellow poet Louis MacNeice. The next day he visited a doctor for a smallpox vaccination certificate.

His first appearance was planned to be at a rehearsal of Under Milk Wood at the Poetry Centre. Brinnin, who was director of the Poetry Centre, did not travel to New York but remained in Boston to write. He handed responsibility to his assistant, Liz Reitell, who was keen to see Thomas for the first time since their three week romance in the spring. She met Thomas at Idlewild Airport and was shocked at his appearance, as he "looked pale, delicate and shaky, not his usual robust self." Thomas told her he had had a terrible week, had missed her terribly and wanted to go to bed with her. Despite Reitell's previous misgivings about their relationship they spent the rest of the day and night together. After being taken by Reitel to check-in at the Chelsea Hotel, Thomas took the first rehearsal of Under Milk Wood. They then went to the White Horse, before returning to the Chelsea.

The next day she invited him to her apartment but he declined. They went sight-seeing, but Thomas was unwell and retired to his bed for the rest of the afternoon. Reitell gave him half a grain of phenobarbitone to help him sleep and spent the night at the hotel with him. Two days later on the 23 October, Herb Hannum, a friend from an earlier trip, noticed how sick Thomas looked and suggested an appointment with Feltenstein before the performances of Under Milk Wood that evening. Feltenstein administered injections and Thomas made it through the two performances, but collapsed immediately afterwards. Reitell later said that Feltenstein was "rather a wild doctor who thought injections would cure anything".

On the evening of 27 October 1953, Thomas attended his 39th birthday party but felt unwell and returned to his hotel after an hour. The next day he took part in Poetry And The Film, a recorded symposium at Cinema 16, with panellists Amos Vogel, Arthur Miller, Maya Deren, Parker Tyler, and Willard Maas.

A turning point came on 2 November. Air pollution in New York had risen significantly and exacerbated chest illnesses, such as Thomas had. By the end of the month, over 200 New Yorkers had died from the smog. On 3 November Thomas spent most of the day in bed drinking. He went out in the evening to keep two drink appointments. After returning to the hotel, he went out again for a drink at 2 am. After drinking at the White Horse, a pub he had found through Scottish poet Ruthven Todd, Thomas returned to the Hotel Chelsea, declaring, "I've had 18 straight whiskies. I think that's the record!" The barman and the owner of the pub who served him later commented that Thomas could not have imbibed more than half that amount. Thomas had an appointment at a clam house in New Jersey with Todd on 4 November. When phoned at the Chelsea that morning, he said he was feeling ill and postponed the engagement. Later he went drinking with Reitell at the White Horse and, feeling sick again, returned to the hotel. Feltenstein came to see him three times that day, administering the steroid ACTH by injection and, on his third visit, half a grain of morphine sulphate, which affected his breathing. Reitell became increasingly concerned and telephoned Feltenstein for advice. He suggested she get male assistance, so she called upon the painter Jack Heliker, who arrived before 11pm. At midnight on 5 November, Thomas' breathing became more difficult and his face turned blue. An ambulance was summoned.

Thomas was admitted to the emergency ward at St Vincent's Hospital at 1.58am. He was comatose, and his medical notes state that the "impression upon admission was acute alcoholic encephalopathy damage to the brain by alcohol, for which the patient was treated without response". Caitlin flew to America the following day and was taken to the hospital, by which time a tracheotomy had been performed. Her reported first words were, "Is the bloody man dead yet?" She was allowed to see Thomas only for 40 minutes in the morning but returned in the afternoon and, in a drunken rage, threatened to kill Brinnin. When she became uncontrollable, she was put in a straight-jacket and committed to the River Crest private psychiatric detox clinic on Long Island by Feltenstein.

Thomas died at noon on 9 November, still in a coma. A post mortem gave the primary cause of death as pneumonia, with pressure on the brain and a fatty liver as contributing factors.

Thomas' grave at the churchyard in Laugharne in 1981

Aftermath

Rumours circulated of a brain haemorrhage, followed by reports he had been mugged and that he had drunk himself to death. Later, there was speculation about drugs and diabetes. At the post-mortem, the pathologist found three causes of death – pneumonia, brain swelling and a fatty liver. Despite his heavy drinking his liver showed no sign of cirrhosis.

Dylan's legacy as the "doomed poet" was cemented with the publication of Brinnin's 1955 biography Dylan Thomas in America, which focusses on his last few years and paints a picture of him as a drunk and a philanderer. Later biographies are critical of Brinnin's view, especially his coverage of Thomas' death. David Thomas in Fatal Neglect: Who Killed Dylan Thomas? claims that Brinnin, along with Reitell and Feltenstein, were culpable. FitzGibbon’s 1965 biography ignores Thomas' heavy drinking and skims over his death, giving just two pages in his detailed book to Thomas' demise. Ferris in his 1989 biography includes Thomas' heavy drinking, but is more critical of those around him in his final days and does not draw the conclusion that he drank himself to death. The role of Feltenstein has been criticised by many sources, especially his incorrect diagnosis of delirium tremens and the high dose of morphine he administered. Dr B.W. Murphy and Dr C.G. de Gutierrez-Mahoney, doctors that treated Thomas while at St. Vincents, concluded that Faltenstein's failure to see that Thomas was gravely ill and have him admitted to hospital sooner, "was even more culpable than his use of morphine".

Following his death, Thomas' body was brought back to Wales for burial in the village churchyard at Laugharne. Thomas' funeral, which Brinnin did not attend, took place at St Martin's Church in Laugharne on 24 November. Thomas' coffin was carried by six friends from the village. Caitlin, without her customary hat, walked behind the coffin, with his childhood friend Daniel Jones at her arm and her mother by her side. The procession to the church was filmed and the wake took place at Brown's Hotel. Thomas' obituary in the Times was written by fellow poet and long-time friend, Vernon Watkins.

His widow, Caitlin, died in 1994 and was buried alongside him. Thomas' father "DJ" died on 16 December 1952 and his mother Florence in August 1958. Thomas' elder son, Llewelyn, died in 2000 and his daughter, Aeronwy in 2009.

Caitlin Thomas' autobiographies, Caitlin Thomas – Leftover Life to Kill (1957) and My Life with Dylan Thomas: Double Drink Story (1997), describe the destructive effect of alcoholism on the poet and to their relationship. "But ours was a drink story, not a love story, just like millions of others. Our one and only true love was drink". "The bar was our altar" Biographer Andrew Lycett ascribed the demise of Thomas' health to an alcoholic co-dependent relationship with his wife, who deeply resented his affairs. Thomas died intestate with assets to the value of £100.

Poetry

Poetic style and influences

Thomas' refusal to align with any literary group or movement has made him and his work difficult to categorize. Although influenced by the modern symbolism and surrealism movement he refused to follow its creed. Instead Thomas is viewed as part of the modernism and romanticism movements, though attempts to pigeon-hole him within a particular neo-romantic school have been unsuccessful.

Thomas' verbal style played against strict verse forms, such as in the villanelle "Do not go gentle into that good night". His images were carefully ordered in a patterned sequence, and his major theme was the unity of all life, the continuing process of life and death and new life that linked the generations. Thomas saw biology as a magical transformation producing unity out of diversity, and in his poetry sought a poetic ritual to celebrate this unity. He saw men and women locked in cycles of growth, love, procreation, new growth, death, and new life. Therefore, each image engenders its opposite. Thomas derived his closely woven, sometimes self-contradictory images from the Bible, Welsh folklore, preaching, and Sigmund Freud.

Who once were a bloom of wayside brides in the hawed house
and heard the lewd, wooed field flow to the coming frost,
the scurrying, furred small friars squeal in the dowse
of day, in the thistle aisles, till the white owl crossed

From "In the White Giant's Thigh"
Under Milk Wood (1952)

Thomas' early poetry was noted for its verbal density, alliteration, sprung rhythm and internal rhyme, and he was described by some critics as having being influenced by English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. This is attributed to Hopkins who taught himself Welsh and used sprung verse, bringing some features of Welsh poetic metre into his work. When Henry Treece wrote to Thomas comparing his style to that of Hopkins, Thomas wrote back denying any such influence. One poet Thomas greatly admired, and who is regarded as an influence, was Thomas Hardy. When Thomas travelled in America, he recited Hardy's work in his readings.

Other poets from whom critics believe Thomas drew influence include James Joyce, Arthur Rimbaud and D. H. Lawrence. William York Tindall, in his 1962 study, A Reader's Guide to Dylan Thomas, finds comparison between Thomas' and Joyce's wordplay, while he notes the themes of rebirth and nature are common to the works of Lawrence and Thomas. Although Thomas described himself as the "Rimbaud of Cwmdonkin Drive", he stated that the phrase "Swansea's Rimbaud" was coined by poet Roy Campbell. Critics have explored the connection between the creation of Thomas' mythological pasts into his works such as "The Orchards", which Ann Elizabeth Mayer believes reflects the Welsh myths of the Mabinogion. Thomas' poetry is notable for its musicality, most clear in "Fern Hill", "In Country Sleep", "Ballad of the Long-legged Bait" and "In the White Giant's Thigh" from Under Milk Wood.

Thomas once confided that the poems which had most influenced him were Mother Goose rhymes which his parents taught him when he was a child:

I should say I wanted to write poetry in the beginning because I had fallen in love with words. The first poems I knew were nursery rhymes and before I could read them for myself I had come to love the words of them. The words alone. What the words stood for was of a very secondary importance ... I fell in love, that is the only expression I can think of, at once, and am still at the mercy of words, though sometimes now, knowing a little of their behaviour very well, I think I can influence them slightly and have even learned to beat them now and then, which they appear to enjoy. I tumbled for words at once. And, when I began to read the nursery rhymes for myself, and, later, to read other verses and ballads, I knew that I had discovered the most important things, to me, that could be ever.

Thomas was an accomplished writer of prose poetry, with collections such as Potrait of the Artist as a Young Dog (1940) and Quite Early One Morning (1954) showing he was capable of writing moving short stories. One of Thomas' most popular works was the short essay A Child's Christmas in Wales, which after being released as part of a recording, in which Thomas read his own work, became his most popular prose work in America. The original 1952 recording of A Child's Christmas in Wales was a 2008 selection for the United States National Recording Registry, stating that it is "credited with launching the audiobook industry in the United States".

As a 'Welsh' poet

Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.

From "In my Craft or Sullen Art"
Deaths and Entrances, 1946

Thomas disliked being regarded as a provincial poet, and decried any notion of 'Welshness' in his poetry. When he wrote to Stephen Spender in 1952, thanking him for a review of his Collected Poems, he added "Oh, & I forgot. I'm not influenced by Welsh bardic poetry. I can't read Welsh." Despite this his work was rooted in the geography of Wales. Thomas acknowledged that he returned to Wales when he had difficulty writing, and John Ackerman argues that "His inspiration and imagination were rooted in his Welsh background". Caitlin Thomas wrote that he worked "in a fanatically narrow groove, although there was nothing narrow about the depth and understanding of his feelings. The groove of direct hereditary descent in the land of his birth, which he never in thought, and hardly in body, moved out of.

Head of Programmes Wales at the BBC, Aneirin Talfan Davies, who commissioned several of Thomas' early radio talks, believed that the poet's "whole attitude is that of the medieval bards." Kenneth O. Morgan counter-argues that it is a 'difficult enterprise' to find traces of cynghanedd (harmony) or cerdd dafod (tongue-craft) in Thomas' poetry. Instead he believes his work, especially his earlier more autobiographical poems, are rooted in a changing country which echoes the Welshness of the past and the Anglicisation of the new industrial nation: "rural and urban, chapel-going and profane, Welsh and English, Unforgiving and deeply compassionate." Fellow poet and critic Glyn Jones believed that any traces of cynghanedd in Thomas' work was accidental, although he felt Thomas consciously employed one element of Welsh metrics; that of counting syllables per line instead of feet. Constantine FitzGibbon, Thomas' first in-depth biographer, wrote "No major English poet has ever been as Welsh as Dylan".

Although Thomas had a deep connection with Wales, he disliked Welsh nationalism. He once wrote, "Land of my fathers, and my fathers can keep it". Robert Pocock, a friend from the BBC, recalled "I only once heard Dylan express an opinion on Welsh Nationalism. He used three words. Two of them were Welsh Nationalism." Although not expressed as strongly, Glyn Jones believed that he and Thomas' friendship cooled in the later years as he had not 'rejected enough' of the elements that Thomas disliked – "Welsh nationalism and a sort of hill farm morality". Apologetically, in a letter to Keidrych Rhys, editor of literary magazine Wales, Thomas' father wrote that he was "afraid Dylan isn't much of a Welshman". Though FitzGibbon asserts that Thomas' negativity towards Welsh nationalism was fostered by his father's hostility towards the Welsh language.

Critical reception

Thomas' work and stature as a poet have been much debated by critics and biographers since his death. Critical studies have been clouded by Thomas' personality and mythology, especially his drunken persona and death in New York. When Seamus Heaney gave an Oxford lecture on the poet he opened by addressing the assembly, "Dylan Thomas is now as much a case history as a chapter in the history of poetry", querying how 'Thomas the Poet' is one of his forgotten attributes. David Holbrook, who has written three books about Thomas, stated in 1962, "the strangest feature of Dylan Thomas's notoriety-not that he is bogus, but that attitudes to poetry attached themselves to him which not only threaten the prestige, effectiveness and accessability to English poetry, but also destroyed his true voice and, at last, him."

Many critics have argued that Thomas' work is too narrow and that he suffers from verbal extravagance. Those that have championed his work, have found the criticism baffling. Robert Lowell wrote in 1947, "Nothing could be more wrongheaded, than the English disputes about Dylan Thomas's greatness ... He is a dazzling obscure writer who can be enjoyed without understanding." Kenneth Rexroth said, on reading Eighteen Poems, "The reeling excitement of a poetry-intoxicated schoolboy smote the Philistine as hard a blow with one small book as Swinburne had with Poems and Ballads." Philip Larkin in a letter to Kingsley Amis in 1948, wrote that "no one can 'stick words into us like pins'... like he [Thomas] can", but followed that by stating that he "doesn't use his words to any advantage". Amis was far harsher finding little of merit in his work.

Despite criticism by sections of academia, Thomas' work has been embraced by readers more so than many of his contemporaries, and is one of the few modern poets whose name is recognised by the general public. Several of his poems have passed into the cultural mainstream, and his work has been used by authors, musicians and film and television writers. The BBC Radio programme, Desert Island Discs, in which guests usually choose their favourite songs, has heard 45 participants select a Dylan Thomas recording.

Memorials

Statue of Dylan Thomas in Swansea

See also: Cultural depictions of Dylan Thomas

In Swansea's maritime quarter are the Dylan Thomas Theatre, home of the Swansea Little Theatre of which Thomas was once a member, and the former Guildhall built in 1825 and now occupied by the Dylan Thomas Centre, a literature centre, where exhibitions and lectures are held and setting for the annual Dylan Thomas Festival. Outside the centre stands a bronze statue of Thomas, by John Doubleday. Another monument to Thomas stands in Cwmdonkin Park, one of his favourite childhood haunts, close to his birthplace. The memorial is a small rock in an enclosed garden within the park inscribed with the closing lines from "Fern Hill":

Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

Thomas' home in Laugharne, the Boathouse, is a museum run by Carmarthenshire County Council. Thomas' writing shed is also preserved. In 2004 the Dylan Thomas Prize was created in his honour, awarded to the best published writer in English under the age of 30. In 2005 the Dylan Thomas Screenplay Award was established. The prize, administered by the Dylan Thomas Centre, is awarded at the annual Swansea Bay Film Festival. In 1982 a plaque was unveiled in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey.

A bronze statue to mark the centenary of Thomas' birth, by Welsh sculptor Peter Nicholas, is planned for 2014.

Selected works

Poetry collections

• 1934 18 Poems
• 1936 Twenty-Five Poems
• 1939 The Map of Love
• 1943 New Poems
• 1946 Deaths and Entrances
• 1950 Twenty-Six Poems
• 1952 In Country Sleep
• 1952 Collected Poems, 1934–1952 (Dent)

Collected prose

• 1940 Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog, Dent
• 1946 Selected Writings of Dylan Thomas, New Directions
• 1953 Adventures In The Skin Trade And Other Stories (Adventures In The Skin Trade, an unfinished novel). New Directions
• 1954 Quite Early One Morning (Planned by Thomas, posthumously published). New Directions
• 1955 A Child's Christmas in Wales, New Directions
• 1955 A Prospect of the Sea and other stories and prose writings, Dent
• 1957 Letters to Vernon Watkins, Dent
• 1965 Rebecca's Daughters, Triton
• 1969 The year of love.

Drama

• 1954 Under Milk Wood (Radio play)
• 1953 The Doctor and the Devils and Other Scripts
• 1964 The Beach of Falesa (Screenplay)

Collections

• 1978 A Child's Christmas in Wales illustrated by Edward Ardizzone. 1996: published as Dolphin Paperback from Orion Children's Books
• 1982 Selected Works, Guild Publishing, London
• 1984 The Collected Stories of Dylan Thomas, New Directions Publishing
• 1986 Collected Letters. Edited by Paul Ferris. MacMillan
• 1992 On the Air With Dylan Thomas: The Broadcasts, Ed. Ralph Maud New Directions Publishing
• 1994 Eight Stories, W. W. Norton & Co
• 1995 Dylan Thomas: The Complete Screenplays, Ed. John Ackerman. Applause Books
• 1997 Fern Hill: An Illustrated edition of the Dylan Thomas poem. Red Deer College Press, Canada
• 2000 Collected Poems 1934–1953, London: Phoenix
• 2000 Selected Poems London: Phoenix

Discography

• Dylan Thomas: Volume I — A Child's Christmas in Wales and Five Poems (Caedmon TC 1002–1952)
• Under Milk Wood (Caedmon TC 2005–1953)
• Dylan Thomas: Volume II — Selections from the Writings of Dylan Thomas (Caedmon TC 1018–1954)
• Dylan Thomas: Volume III — Selections from the Writings of Dylan Thomas (Caedmon TC 1043)
• Dylan Thomas: Volume IV — Selections from the Writings of Dylan Thomas (Caedmon TC 1061)
• Dylan Thomas: Quite early one morning and other memories (Caedmon TC 1132–1960)
• Dylan Thomas: Under Milk Wood and other plays (Naxos Audiobooks NA288712 – 2008) (originally BBC – 1954)

Posthumous film adaptations

• 1972 Under Milk Wood, starring Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, and Peter O'Toole
• 1987 A Child's Christmas in Wales. Directed by Don McBrearty.
• 1992 Rebecca's Daughters starring Peter O'Toole and Joely Richardson
• 2007 Dylan Thomas: A War Films Anthology (DDHE/IWM D23702 – 2006)
• 2009 Nadolig Plentyn yng Nghymru/A Child's Christmas in Wales, 2009 BAFTA Best Short Film, animation, soundtrack in Welsh and English, Director: Dave Unwin. Extras include filmed comments from Aeronwy Thomas. 5-016886-088457.

Media depictions

• 1962: Dylan Thomas, a short, Oscar-winning, documentary film with Richard Burton as narrator, directed by Jack Howells.
• 1964: Dylan, a Broadway play by Sidney Michaels, starring Alec Guinness as Dylan Thomas and Kate Reid as Caitlin.
• 1978: Dylan: Life and Death of a Poet, a BBC Wales film of Thomas' final two visits to America; directed by Richard Lewis.
• 1990–91: Dylan Thomas: Return Journey, a one-man stage show that toured internationally, featuring Bob Kingdom as Thomas and directed by Anthony Hopkins.
• 2008: The Edge of Love starring Matthew Rhys as the poet, directed by John Maybury, written by Sharman Macdonald, and drawing on David N. Thomas' book Dylan Thomas: A Farm, Two Mansions and a Bungalow.

See also

• Cultural depictions of Dylan Thomas

Footnotes

Notes

References

Bibliography

• Bold, Norman (1976). Cambridge Book of English Verse, 1939–1975. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-09840-3.
• Ferris, Paul (1993). Caitlin, The life of Caitlin Thomas. London: Pimlico. ISBN 0-7126-6290-1.
• Ferris, Paul (1989). Dylan Thomas, A Biography. New York: Paragon House. ISBN 1-55778-215-6.
• FitzGibbon, Constantine (1965). The Life of Dylan Thomas. J.M. Dent & Sons ltd.
• Jones, Glyn (1968). The Dragon has Two Tounges. London: J.M. Dent & Sons ltd.
• Read, Bill (1964). The Days of Dylan Thomas. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company.
• Thomas, Caitlin (1957). Leftover Life to Kill. Putham. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Thomas, Caitlin (1986). Caitlin, Life with Dylan Thomas. London: Secker & Warburg. ISBN 0-436-51850-3. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Thomas, Caitlin (1997). My Life with Dylan Thomas, Double Drink Story. London: Viking. ISBN 978-0-670-87378-4.
• Thomas, David N. (2000). Dylan Thomas: A Farm, Two Mansions and a Bungalow. Bridgend. ISBN 1-85411-275-9.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Thomas, David N. (2008). Fatal Neglect: Who Killed Dylan Thomas?. Seren. ISBN 978-1854114808.

Further reading

• Brinnin, John Malcolm (1956). Dylan Thomas in America: an intimate journal. Little, Brown and Cooper.
• Charles B. Cox (editor), Dylan Thomas: a Collection of Critical Essays, 1966
• Lycett, Andrew (2004). Dylan Thomas: A new life. Phoenix. ISBN 978-0753817872.
• Thomas, David N. (2000). Dylan Thomas: A Farm, Two Mansions and a Bungalow. Seren. ISBN 978-1854112750.
• Thomas, David N. (2003). Dylan Remembered, Volume 1: 1913–1934. Seren. ISBN 978-1854113481.
• Thomas, David N. (2004). Dylan Remembered, Volume 2: 1935–1953. Seren. ISBN 978-1854113634.
• Thomas, David N. (2008). Fatal Neglect: Who Killed Dylan Thomas?. Seren. ISBN 978-1854114808.

External links

• Dylan Thomas at IMDb
• Dylan Thomas at the Internet Broadway Database
• Works by Dylan Thomas (public domain in Canada). Retrieved 11 September 2010
• Profile at the Poetry Foundation
• Profile with poems (written and audio) at the Poetry Archive
• Audio files: Anthology Film Archives. Including Dylan Thomas (drunk). Symposium at Cinema 16 1953-10-28. Retrieved 11 September 2010
• Dylan Thomas Official Family Web Site, Swansea. Retrieved 11 September 2010
• BBC Wales' Dylan Thomas site. Retrieved 11 September 2010
• The Dylan Thomas Collection at the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin. Retrieved 11 September 2010
• "Archival material relating to Dylan Thomas". UK National Archives.
• Portraits of Dylan Thomas at the National Portrait Gallery, London