DYLAN THOMAS

'Dylan Thomas' (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953) was a Welsh poet.

Contents

Biography

Marriage and children

Alcoholism and death

Poetry

Thomas memorials

Bibliography

Discography

Filmography

Impact on other cultural figures

Notes

External links

Biography

Dylan Thomas was born at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive, Swansea, Wales. His father, David, who taught English Literature at the local Grammar School, brought his son up to speak English; Welsh was the native language of Dylan's mother, Florence Hannah Thomas. His middle name, Marlais, came from the bardic name of his uncle, the Unitarian minister Gwilym Marles (whose given name was William Thomas). He had one sister, Nancy, eight years his senior.
His formal education began at seven, at Mrs Hole's Dame School. He later attended the boys-only Swansea Grammar School in the Mount Pleasant district of the city. It was in this school's magazine that Thomas saw his first poem published. He left school at sixteen to become a reporter, for eighteen months.
His childhood was spent largely in Swansea, with regular summer trips to visit his mother's family on their Carmarthen farm. These rural sojourns, and the contrast with the town life of Swansea, provided inspiration for much of his work, notably many short stories, radio essays and the poem ''Fern Hill''. He was considered too frail to fight in World War II, so served the war effort by writing scripts for government propaganda.
Thomas wrote half his poems and many short stories when he lived at the family home at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive, Uplands, Swansea. ''And death shall have no dominion'' is one of the best known works written at this address. His highly acclaimed^[1] first poetry volume, ''18 Poems'', was published on 18 December 1934. The publication of ''Deaths and Entrances'' in 1946 was a major turning point^[2][3][4] in his career, with widespread recognition that a great poet had indeed emerged. Thomas "became a very successful orator...was extremely well-known during his life for being a versatile and dynamic speaker and he was best known for his poetry readings."^[5] His immensely striking and powerful voice would captivate American audiences during his speaking tours of the early 1950s. He made over two hundred broadcasts for the BBC. Often considered his greatest single work is '''Under Milk Wood','' a radio play featuring the characters of a fictional Welsh fishing village, Llareggub. Richard Burton starred in the first broadcast; he was joined by Elizabeth Taylor in a subsequent film.

Marriage and children

Dylan Thomas met his wife Caitlin and "the love affair started in a Fitzrovia pub in the Spring of 1936. A young Irish dancer called Caitlin Macnamara sat on a stool at the bar: blonde, blue-eyed and drinking gin. To the drunken Welsh poet who staggered towards her through the smokey fug of The Wheatsheaf, she appeared an angelic beauty. And when finally the poet reached her, eccentrically laying his head in her lap, he mumbled a proposal of marriage. This unorthodox first encounter between Dylan Thomas and his wife is a central part of the Bohemian mythology that surrounds the memory of one of Britain's best loved creative talents."^[6]
On 11 July 1937, Thomas married MacNamara at Penzance register office. They had three children. The marriage was tempestuous with rumours of affairs on both sides; Caitlin had an affair with Augustus John before, and quite possibly after, she married Thomas. It is widely suspected that Dylan's tumultuous personal life was a direct result of his frequent and heavy usage of alcohol. On 30 January 1939 came the birth of their first child, a boy whom they named Llewelyn Edouard (died in 2000). He was followed on 3 March 1943 by a daughter, Aeronwy. A second son, Colm Garan Hart, was born on 24 July 1949.

Alcoholism and death

Thomas liked to boast about his drinking, he was known to comment, "An alcoholic is someone you don't like who drinks as much as you do."^[7] During an incident on 3 November, 1953, Thomas returned to the Chelsea Hotel in New York and exclaimed, "I've had eighteen straight whiskies; I think this is a record."
He collapsed on November 9, 1953 at the White Horse Tavern, in Greenwich Village, Manhattan after drinking heavily while on a promotional speaking tour; Thomas later died at St Vincent's Hospital. The primary cause of his death is recorded as pneumonia, with pressure on the brain and a fatty liver given as contributing factors. His last words, according to Jack Heliker, were: "After 39 years, this is all I've done." Following his death, his body was brought back to Wales for burial in the village churchyard at Laugharne. His wife, Caitlin, died in 1994, and was buried alongside him. It is said that Mr Thomas's favourite drink was the Whiskey Sour, which, on several occasions, he referred to as "jolly good nosh, this". ('Nosh' is Yiddish, but in general British English usage, slang for food.)

Poetry

On whom Thomas writes for: see "In My Craft Or Sullen Art:"^[8]

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.

Here is an exemplary excerpt, from "In the White Giant's Thigh:"

''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 aisle till the white owl crossed..."''^[9]

Thomas' poem ''And Death Shall Have no Dominion'', is noted for its metaphysical sentiment and the notion that death shall never triumph over life.^[10]

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.

Thomas's poetry often appears in anthologies - usually "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" - where it is popular among general readers, but his Collected Poems still sells well. Most people are familiar with the facts of Thomas's life and death (and his fondness for drink) and this often informs the preference for some of the poetry, though much of his early poems remain little known beyond his fan-base. Whereas some critics place Thomas in the Welsh bardic tradition, and admire the subtle internal rhymnes and use of language, other critics opine that his work lacks development - that he remained stuck in adolescence, where language is more important than emotion or feeling.
Most people today accept that Thomas as man was far from likeable at times - his self-pitying begging letters to the major writers of the 1940's and 50's remain notorious - but that his talent at its best mark him out as one of the more impressive poets of the '30s and 40's, however much it remained fixed in one theme and one way of expressing that theme.

Thomas memorials

As would be expected of a famous poet whose best known line is "Do not go gentle into that good night", many memorials have been inaugurated to honour Thomas. Tourists in his home town of Swansea can visit a statue in the Maritime Quarter, the Dylan Thomas Theatre, and the Dylan Thomas Centre, formerly the town's guildhall. The latter is now a literature centre, where exhibitions and lectures are held and is the setting for the city's annual Dylan Thomas Festival. Another monument to Thomas stands in Cwmdonkin Park, one of his favourite childhood haunts, close to his birthplace at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive. The memorial is inscribed with the closing lines from one of his best-loved poems, ''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."''^[11] This is inscribed on a rock in a closed-off garden within the park.
Thomas's home in Laugharne, the Boathouse, is a memorial. Several of the pubs in Swansea also have associations with the poet. One of Swansea's oldest pubs, the ''No Sign Bar'', was a regular haunt, renamed the Wine Vaults in his story ''The Followers''.
Thomas' obituary was written by his long term friend Vernon Watkins. A class 153 locomotive was named Dylan Thomas 1914 - 1953. In 2004 a new literary prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize,^[12] was created in honour of the poet. It is awarded to the best published writer in English under the age of 30.
Various artists have acknowledged Thomas' influence with tributes:

★ Igor Stravinsky wrote ''In memoriam Dylan Thomas: Dirge canons and song'' (1954) for tenor voice, string quartet, and four trombones, based on "Do not go gentle".

★ The cover of the Beatles album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band contains a photograph of Dylan Thomas.

★ In the Simon & Garfunkel song "A Simple Desultory Philippic" (1965) Paul Simon sings ironically: "He doesn't dig poetry. He's so unhip that / When you say "Dylan", he thinks you're talking about Dylan Thomas, / Whoever he was".

★ Musician Ben Taylor named his 2003 album "famous among the barns" as tribute to Dylan Thomas.

★ The Coolmore Stud has a colt (horse) called Dylan Thomas which won the Irish Derby on the 2nd July 2006.

★ Alternative rock band The Slip make a reference to the poet in their 2006 song, "Airplane/Primitive" from the album Eisenhower: "It is the day before the rest of my life / And I feel like Dylan Thomas".

Bibliography

'Poetry'

★ ''Collected Poems 1934 – 1953'' (London: Phoenix, 2003)

★ ''Selected Poems'' (London: Phoenix, 2001)

★ ''18 Poems (1934)[OOP]
25 Poems (1936) [OOP]
The Map of Love (1939) [OOP]
The World I Breathe (1939) [OOP]
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog (1940)
New Poems (1943) [OOP]
Deaths and Entrances (1946) [OOP]
Selected Writings of Dylan Thomas (1946) [OOP]
Twenty-Six Poems (1950) [OOP]
In Country Sleep (1952) [OOP]
Collected Poems, 1934-1952 (1952)
The Doctor and the Devils and Other Scripts (1953)
Under Milk Wood: A Play For Voices (1954)
Quite Early One Morning (1954)
Adventures in the Skin Trade and Other Stories (1955)
A Prospect of the Sea (1955) [OOP]
A Child's Christmas in Wales (1955)
Letters to Vernon Watkins (1957)
The Doctor and the Devils and Other Scripts
The Beach of Falesa (1964) [OOP]
Dylan Thomas - a Collection of Critical Essays: Charles B. Cox (ed.) (1966) [OOP]
The Poems of Dylan Thomas (1979)
The Collected Stories of Dylan Thomas (1984)
On the Air With Dylan Thomas: The Broadcasts
Eight Stories (1993)
Dylan Thomas: The Complete Screenplays (1995)
Rebecca's Daughters: A Film Scenario
Fern Hill: An Illustrated edition of the Dylan Thomas poem. [1998] ''
'Prose'

★ ''Collected Letters''

★ ''Collected Stories ''

★ ''Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog'' (1940 Dent)

★ ''Under Milk Wood''

★ ''Quite Early One Morning'' (posthumous)

★ ''Adventures In The Skin Trade And Other Stories'' (1955, posthumous)

★ ''Rebecca's Daughters'' (1965)

★ ''After the Fair''

★ ''The Tree''

★ ''The Dress''

★ ''The Visitor''

★ ''The Vest''
'Drama'

★ ''The Doctor and the Devils'' (1964)

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)

Filmography

★ ''Dylan Thomas: A War Films Anthology'' (DDHE/IWM D23702 - 2006 (DVD Region 0))

Impact on other cultural figures

★ It is rumored the young American folk singer born Robert Zimmerman, took the stage name Bob Dylan in 1960 - partly in homage to Dylan Thomas - and partly to evoke the image of a bohemian poet that the name ''Dylan'' conveyed to the college-educated baby boomer generation - because of Dylan Thomas's iconic status. In August 1962 Zimmerman changed his name legally to Robert Dylan.

★ Welsh musician John Cale has been highly influenced by the work of Dylan Thomas, even setting several of his poems (There Was a Saviour, On a Wedding Anniversary, Lie Still, Sleep Becalmed and Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night) to orchestral music on his 1989 album Words for the Dying.

★ American author Shirley Jackson met Thomas once briefly in her family home and, while accounts of their meeting vary, Shirley was allegedly deeply affected by the encounter. She wrote several short stories dedicated to and loosely based around Thomas. Only one of these short stories, "The Lovely House", was published during Jackson's lifetime; it appears in the posthumous collection ''Come Along With Me''. Another story, "A Great Voice Stilled", is based on the academics that analysed Thomas after his death; this story appears in another posthumous collection of Jackson's work, ''Just An Ordinary Day''.

★ Leeds-based Anarcho-punkband Chumbawumba have used the words to the poem "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" as the basis for the lyrics of the songs "Rage" from the album Anarchy and "Song for Derek Jarman" from the Homophobia EP. Both feature the same lyrical fragment, although it is re-written slightly to fit the music more easily:
"'Don't go gently into the night',

'Rage against the dying of the light'"

Notes

1. "Dylan Thomas - In The Mercy of His Means", George Tremlett, 1991, ISBN 0-09-472180-7
2. "''It is difficult to convey in a few words the quality of Mr Thomas's poetry''" Vita Sackville-West, The Observer
3. "''Dylan Thomas is not only the best living Welsh poet, but is a great poet..''" John Betjeman, The Daily Herald
4. "''This book alone, in my opinion, ranks him as a major poet''", W.J. Turner, The Spectator
5. http://students.washington.edu/mohrmann/PotW/102997potw.html
6. http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1957289,00.html
7. http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/dylan_thomas/quotes
8. http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/dylan_thomas/poems/11413
9. http://www.undermilkwood.net/poetry_whitegiantsthigh.html
10. http://www.internal.org/view_poem.phtml?poemID=277
11. http://www.bigeye.com/fernhill.htm
12. http://www.thedylanthomasprize.com/

External links

★ Listen to Dylan Thomas. BBC Broadcast (6 May 1953) 'Remembering Childhood'

★ The Life and Work of Dylan Thomas

★ Dylan Thomas on Poets.org Biography, poems, audio clips, and essays

★ "The Mumbles", a village frequented by Thomas

★ The city of Swansea's site on Thomas

★ BBC Wales' Dylan Thomas site

★ The Dylan Thomas Theatre Company Swansea

★ French Audio Book (mp3) from Under Milk Wood, translated in French by JB.Brunius

★ "The pub and the hellraiser: The poet, the actor, their pub, a furore" The Independent online edition 30 November 2005

★ BBC Wales biography of Caitlin

★ Biography (obituary) of son Llewelyn, from Guardian Unlimited (2000)

★ Guardian article about two new films of Caitlin's life

★ Living with Legends: Hotel Chelsea blog

★ The Last Day of Dylan Thomas by Ring Joid

★ Short biography plus local pictures and maps from Swansea and Laugharne

★ The official Dylan Thomas bookshop

★ Dylan Thomas statue by John Doubleday

★ Dylan Thomas Centre, Swansea



★ Newlyn Wikitravel