| The lyrics of Dylan Thomas are not to be divorced | | | | few big numbers with a catchy line or two. |
| from the legend of his life or lifestyle. You can visit the | | | | Memorability ensures durability. Thomas achieved that |
| Cultural Heritage Boat House at Laugharne to see his | | | | memorability and a couple of his poems were |
| grave, have a Welsh cream tea and buy souvenirs. | | | | overworked - 'Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night', |
| Dylan Marlais Thomas came from Swansea, a port | | | | written on the death of his father, and 'And Death Shall |
| town in South Wales. He never learned to read the | | | | Have No Dominion'. The latter was read in 1989 at the |
| Welsh language, (which the English had attempted to | | | | funeral of Laurence Olivier who was only the second |
| suppress,) but he listened to its lilts and rhythms and | | | | actor to be interred in Poet's Corner, Westminster |
| knew its deep poetic tradition - a tradition of poet as | | | | Abbey, the other being Edmund Kean in 1833. It served |
| bard and priest. Welsh chapel and the Bible lay at the | | | | as nominally secular verse in place of the English Bible |
| back of his mind as well, inescapably. | | | | and Book of Common Prayer. |
| His father was an English master at Swansea | | | | Thomas's style of verse employs free association and |
| Grammar School, which Thomas attended, and | | | | musical concatenations. It sounds musical, but is this its |
| introduced his son to poetry. His mother was the | | | | sole effect - as word music where sense is |
| daughter of a farmer and took her son into the | | | | secondary to euphonic syntax? Philip Larkin |
| countryside to visit her parents at what became the | | | | disapproved of Thomas's style because he felt the |
| poetic 'Fern Hill' in Deaths and Entrances (1946). | | | | verse was too personalised and lacked |
| On leaving school at 16 Thomas worked as a trainee | | | | communicative force; whereas Larkin strove for a |
| reporter and wrote for local newspapers. His first two | | | | condensation or distillation of sense and meaning: he |
| verse publications were 18 Poems (1934) and Twenty | | | | sought the quintessential pinhead not the angels |
| Five Poems (1936). Following the appearance of his | | | | dancing on it. |
| first book he moved to London where he lived until | | | | Thomas was a pioneer in utilising the mass medium of |
| after the Second World War, always broke, always | | | | radio along with his BBC colleague Louis MacNeice. He |
| borrowing money, often drunk. He married Caitlin | | | | wrote film scripts during the war and completed The |
| Macnamara who was to bear him three children and | | | | Doctor and the Devils in 1947 concerning the Edinburgh |
| who outlived him by over forty years. | | | | murderers Burke and Hare; but the post-war policy of |
| Thomas was unfit for military service and worked for | | | | avoiding violent subjects left the script on the Rank |
| the BBC during the war. His voice had an exceptionally | | | | shelf for nearly four decades. Under Milk Wood - A |
| mellifluous quality that survives in many recordings. At | | | | Play for Voices and A Child's Christmas in Wales |
| the start of the Blitz he composed one of his | | | | were written for radio performance and both work |
| best-known poems 'Refusal to Mourn the Death, By | | | | through the ear and not the reader's eye. They did not |
| Fire, of a Child in London'. He thrived on talking to the | | | | appear in print until after the author's death. Under Milk |
| radio microphone, but, although he went on lecture | | | | Wood was first read at The Poetry Center in New |
| tours in the US he disliked reading his own works to a | | | | York in 1953. It was performed on BBC Radio in 1954 |
| live audience. | | | | and filmed with Richard Burton in 1971. |
| In 1947 he suffered a nervous collapse brought on by | | | | In pursuit of money Thomas gave three lecture tours |
| the strains of his marriage, his drinking and his | | | | in the United States. He died in New York in 1953, at |
| impecunity. He owed back-taxes to the Inland | | | | the age of 39, after allegedly drinking 18 straight |
| Revenue. The Thomases moved into a garden shed | | | | whiskies. But there are conflicting accounts of the |
| at the house of the historian A. J. P. Taylor in | | | | events leading up to his death to which an overdose |
| Cambridge. When they had outstayed their welcome, | | | | of morphine may have contributed. |
| the Taylors bought the Boat House at Laugharne and | | | | Read the full version of this essay at |
| presented it to Dylan and Caitlin. | | | | literature-study-online. |
| Considering the verse, it's as well for a poet to have a | | | | |