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Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953) was a Welsh poet who wrote exclusively in English. In addition to poetry, he wrote short stories and scripts for film and radio, which he often performed himself. His public readings, particularly in America, won him great acclaim; his sonorous voice with a subtle Welsh lilt became almost as famous as his works. His best-known works include the "play for voices" Under Milk Wood and the celebrated villanelle for his dying father, Do not go gentle into that good night.
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Quotations
And the sabbath rang slowly In the pebbles of the holy streams.
St. 2
In the sun that is young once only, Time let me play and be Golden in the mercy of his means.
St. 2
Time held me green and dying Though I sang in my chains like the sea.
St. 6
Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green, The night above the dingle starry, Time let me hail and climb Golden in the heydays of his eyes. And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns.
St. 1
And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long, In the sun born over and over, I ran my heedless ways.
St. 5
Encyclopedia
Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953) was a Welsh poet who wrote exclusively in English. In addition to poetry, he wrote short stories and scripts for film and radio, which he often performed himself. His public readings, particularly in America, won him great acclaim; his sonorous voice with a subtle Welsh lilt became almost as famous as his works. His best-known works include the "play for voices" Under Milk Wood and the celebrated villanelle for his dying father, Do not go gentle into that good night. Appreciative critics have also noted the superb craftsmanship and compression of poems such as In my craft or sullen art and the rhapsodic lyricism of Fern Hill.
Early life
Dylan Thomas was born in the Uplands area of Swansea, Wales, on 27 October 1914. Uplands was, and still is, one of the more affluent areas of the city, which kept him away from the more industrial side of the city. His father, David John Thomas, was an English master who taught English literature at the local grammar school. His mother, Florence Hannah Thomas (née Williams), was a seamstress born in Swansea. Dylan had a sister, Nancy, eight years older than him. Their father brought up both children to speak English only, even though both parents also knew Welsh.
Dylan is pronounced 'Dul-an' in Welsh, and in the early part of his career some announcers introduced him using this pronunciation. However, Dylan himself favoured the anglicised pronunciation 'Dill-an'. His middle name, Marlais, was given to him in honour of his great-uncle, Unitarian minister William Thomas, whose bardic name was Gwilym Marles.
His childhood was spent largely in Swansea, with regular summer trips to visit his maternal aunt's Carmarthenshire dairy 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. Thomas was known to be a sickly child who shied away from school and preferred reading on his own and was considered too frail to fight in World War II, instead serving the war effort by writing scripts for the government. He suffered from bronchitis and asthma and was prone to overplay his sickliness.
Thomas's formal education began at Mrs. Hole's 'Dame School', a private school, which was situated a few streets away on Mirador Crescent. He described his experience there in Quite Early One Morning (New Directions Publishing, 1968 - see Google BookSearch).
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."
In October 1925, Thomas attended the single-sex Swansea Grammar School, in the Mount Pleasant district of the city. Thomas's first poem was published in the school's magazine, of which he later became an editor. He left school at 16 to become a reporter for the local newspaper, the South Wales Daily Post only to leave the job under pressure 18 months later in 1932. He then joined an amateur dramatic group in Mumbles, but still continued to work as a freelance journalist for a few more years.
Thomas spent his days visiting the cinema in the Uplands, walking along Swansea Bay, and frequenting Swansea's public houses, especially those in the Mumbles area, the 'Antelope Hotel' and 'The Mermaid Hotel'; a theatre he used to perform at, among them. Thomas was also a regular patron of the 'Kardomah Café' in Castle Street in the centre of Swansea, a short walk from the local newspaper for which he worked, where he mingled with various contemporaries, such as his good friend poet Vernon Watkins. These poets, musicians, and artists became known as 'The Kardomah Gang'.
In 1932, Thomas embarked on what would be one of his various visits to London.
In February 1941, Swansea was bombed by the Luftwaffe in a 'three nights' blitz'. Castle Street was just one of the many streets in Swansea that suffered badly; the rows of shops, including the 'Kardomah Café', were destroyed. Thomas later wrote about this in his radio play Return Journey Home, in which he describes the café as being "razed to the snow". Return Journey Home was first broadcast on 15 June 1947, having been written soon after the bombing raids. Thomas walked the bombed-out shell which was once his home town centre with his friend Bert Trick. Upset at the sight, he concluded, "Our Swansea is dead". The 'Kardomah Café' later reopened on Portland street, not far from the original location.
Career
Thomas wrote half of his poems and many short stories whilst living at his Cwmdonkin home, And death shall have no dominion is one of his best known works written at this address. His highly acclaimed first poetry volume, 18 Poems, was published on 18 December 1934, the same year he moved to London. The publication of 18 Poems won him many new admirers from the world of poetry, including Edith Sitwell; although it was also the time that his reputation for alcohol misuse developed.
At the outset of the Second World War Dylan was designated C3 which meant that although he could, in theory, be called up for service he would be in one of the last groups to be so He was saddened to see his friends enter active service leaving him behind and drank whilst struggling to support his family . He wrote to the director of the films division of the Ministry of Information asking for employment but after a rebuff eventually ended up working for Strand Films. Strand produced films for the Ministry of Information and Thomas scripted at least five in 1942 with titles such as This Is Colour (about dye), New Towns For Old, These Are The Men and Our Country (a sentimental tour of Britain).
The publication of Deaths and Entrances in 1946 was a major turning point in his career. Thomas was well known for being a versatile and dynamic speaker, best known for his poetry readings. His powerful voice would captivate American audiences during his speaking tours of the early 1950s. He made over 200 broadcasts for the BBC. Often considered his greatest single work is Under Milk Wood, a radio play featuring the characters of Llareggub, a fictional Welsh fishing village (humorously named; note that 'Llareggub' is 'Bugger All' backwards, implying that there is absolutely nothing to do there). The BBC credited their producer Stella Hillier with ensuring the play actually materialised. Assigned "some of the more wayward characters who were then writing for the BBC", she dragged the notoriously unreliable Thomas out of the pub and back to her office to finish the work.. Richard Burton starred in the first broadcast; he was joined by Elizabeth Taylor in a subsequent film.
Marriage and children
In the spring of 1936, Dylan Thomas met Caitlin MacNamara, a dancer. They met in the Wheatsheaf public house, in the Fitzrovia area of London's West End. They were introduced by Augustus John, who was MacNamara's lover at the time (there were rumours that she continued her relationship with John after she married Thomas). A drunken Thomas proposed marriage on the spot, and the two began a courtship.
On 11 July 1937, Thomas married MacNamara at Penzance registry office in Cornwall. In 1938 the couple rented a cottage in the place Thomas was to help make famous, the village of Laugharne in Carmarthenshire, West Wales. Their first child was born on 30 January 1939, 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.
The marriage was tempestuous, with rumours of affairs on both sides. In 2004, Thomas's passionate love letters to MacNamara were auctioned. Jay Leno owns some of them.
Addiction
Thomas liked to boast about his addiction, saying;
"An alcoholic is someone you don't like, who drinks as much as you do."
Thomas "liked the taste of whisky," and he did quite his fair share of drinking, although the amount he is supposed to have drunk may have been an exaggeration. After Ruthven Todd, a Scottish poet, had introduced Thomas to the White Horse Tavern, it quickly became a firm favourite of the Welshman. During an incident on 3 November 1953, Thomas returned to the Chelsea Hotel in New York, from the White Horse Tavern and exclaimed, "I've had eighteen straight whiskies, I think that is a record." However, the barman and the owner of the pub who served Thomas at the time, later told Ruthven Todd, that Thomas couldn't have imbibed more than half that amount, after Todd decided to find out.
Here are just some of the public houses that Thomas liked to frequent:
The Uplands Hotel - in the Uplands, Swansea. (Now known as The Uplands Tavern)
The Mermaid Hotel - in the Mumbles, Swansea. (Destroyed by fire then rebuilt)
The Antelope Hotel - also in the Mumbles, and still there. .
The No Sign Wine Bar - in Wind Street, Swansea. (One of the oldest public houses in Swansea)
The Browns Hotel - at Laugharne, Carmarthenshire. (Still remains, almost unchanged)
The Woodlawn Tap - at Hyde Park, Chicago, IL. (Also known as Jimmy's.)
Before Thomas left for New York in 1953, he stayed at The Bush Hotel in Swansea, which was later known as The Bush Inn.
Death
Dylan Thomas died in New York on November 9 1953. The first rumours were of a brain hemorrhage, followed by reports that he had been mugged. Soon came the stories about alcohol, that he had drunk himself to death. Later, there were speculations about drugs and diabetes.
He was already ill when he arrived in New York on October 20 to take part in Under Milk Wood at the city’s prestigious Poetry Center. He had a history of blackouts and chest problems, and was using an inhaler to help his breathing.
The director of the Center was John Brinnin. He was also Thomas’ tour agent, taking a hefty twenty-five percent fee. Despite his duty of care, Brinnin remained at home in Boston and handed responsibility to his ambitious assistant, Liz Reitell. She met Thomas at Idlewild airport who told her that he had had a terrible week, had missed her terribly and wanted to go to bed with her. Despite Liz's previous misgivings about their relationship they spent the rest of the day and night together at the Chelsea.
The next day she invited him to her apartment but he declined saying that he was not feeling well and retired to his bed for the rest of the afternoon.
After spending the night with him at the hotel Liz went back to her own apartment for a change of clothes. At breakfast Herb Hannum noticed how sick Dylan was looking and suggested a visit to a Dr Feltenstein before the performance of Under Milk Wood that evening.
Liz would later describe him as a wild doctor who believed injections could cure anything. He went quickly to work with his needle, and Thomas made it through the two performances of Under Milk Wood, but collapsed straight afterwards.
October 27 was his thirty-ninth birthday. In the evening, he went to a party in his honour but was so unwell that he returned to his hotel. A turning point came on November 2, when air pollution rose to levels that were a threat to those with chest problems. By the end of the month, over two hundred New Yorkers had died from the smog.
Thomas had an appointment to visit a clam-house in New Jersey on November 4, but when telephoned at the Chelsea that morning he said that we was feeling awful and asked to take a "rain-check". He did however accompany Liz to the White Horse for a few beers. Feeling sick he again returned to the hotel.
Feltenstein came to see him three times that day, on the third call prescribing morphine. This seriously affected Dylan's breathing. At midnight on November 4/5, his breathing became more difficult and his face turned blue. Liz Reitell unsuccessfully tried to get hold of Feltenstein. The night porter at the hotel then called the police who summoned an ambulance.
By 1:58 am Thomas had been admitted to the emergency ward at nearby St Vincent’s, by which time he was profoundly comatose. The doctors on duty found bronchitis in all parts of his bronchial tree, both left and right sides. An X-ray showed pneumonia, and a raised white cell count confirmed the presence of an infection. The hospital let the pneumonia run its course and Thomas died on November 9.
At the post-mortem, the pathologist found that the immediate cause of death was swelling of the brain, caused by the pneumonia reducing the supply of oxygen. Despite his heavy drinking his liver showed little sign of cirrhosis. However there was pressure on the brain from a build-up of cerebro-spinal fluid, caused by alcohol poisoning.
According to Lycett the main cause of Dylan's demise was the alcoholic co-dependent relationship with his wife Caitlin, now doomed by her resentment at his betrayals in America.
Following his death, his body was brought back to Wales for his burial in the village churchyard at Laugharne on 25 November. One of the last people to stay at his graveside after the funeral was his mother, Florence. His wife, Caitlin, died in 1994 and was buried alongside him.
The rumor that Dylan's death was related to alcoholism is denied in the book 'Fatal Neglect: Who Killed Dylan Thomas?', by David N. Thomas, in which he suggests Dylan died from medical malpractice when Dr. Feltenstein gave him morphine for delirium tremens - in actuality, he had pneumonia. David N. Thomas also suggests that Feltenstein covered his tracks by pressuring other doctors to agree that it was an alcohol-related death.
Style
Thomas's verbal style played against strict verse forms, such as 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 he 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 again. Therefore, each image engenders its opposite. Thomas derived his closely woven, sometimes self-contradictory images from the Bible, Welsh folklore and preaching, and Freud.
Poetry
Thomas's poetry is famous for its musicality, most notable in poems such as Fern Hill, In the White Giant's Thigh, In Country Sleep and Ballad of the Long-legged Bait. Do not go gentle into that good night, possibly his most popular poem, is unrepresentative of his usual poetic style. Following are a few examples.
From In my Craft or Sullen Art:
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 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 aisles, till the white owl crossed. . .
Thomas's poem And death shall have no dominion is noted for its metaphysical sentiment and assertion of the eternal continuity of life in nature.
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 once confided that the poems which had most influenced him were Mother Goose rhymes which his parents taught him when he was a child. He did not understand all of their contents, but he loved their sounds, and the acoustic qualities of the English language became his focus in his work later. He claimed that the meanings of a poem were of "very secondary nature" to him.
Thomas memorials
Many memorials have been inaugurated to honour Thomas, most of which can be found in his home of Swansea.
Tourists can visit a statue in the city's maritime quarter, the Dylan Thomas (Little) 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 an 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 a small rock in a closed-off garden, set within the park. The rock is 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's home in Laugharne, the Boathouse, has been made 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 of Thomas's. It is mentioned in his story, The Followers but has subsequently been renamed the 'Wine Vaults'. And since, has been re-named The No-Sign Wine Bar.
Thomas's obituary was written by his long-term friend Vernon Watkins. A class 153 diesel multiple unit was named Dylan Thomas 1914 - 1953. In 2004 a new literary prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize, was created in honour of the poet. It is awarded to the best published writer in English under the age of 30.
In 1982, a plaque was unveiled in honour of Dylan Thomas, in Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey.
Cross-cultural tributes
A Simple Desultory Philippic (or How I Was Robert McNamara'd into Submission), in this Paul Simon song, he refers to Dylan Thomas in the lyrics: "When you mention Dylan, he thinks you're talking about Dylan Thomas - whoever he was!".
In memoriam Dylan Thomas: Dirge canons and song (1954) for tenor voice, string quartet, and four trombones, based on Do not go gentle into that good night
- The cover of the Beatles album
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band includes a photograph of Dylan Thomas.
Under Milk Wood a 1965 album by Stan Tracey, inspired by Dylan Thomas, is one of the most celebrated jazz recordings made in the United Kingdom.
- John Cale set a number of Thomas's poems to music:
There was a saviour, Do not go gentle into that good night, On a Wedding Anniversary and Lie still, sleep becalmed, recording them in his 1989 album Words for the Dying and (except for the first one) in his 1992 solo live album Fragments of a Rainy Season.
Before Sunrise, Ethan Hawke's character mimics Dylan Thomas's voice, reading a fragment from As I Walked Out One Evening written by W.H. Auden.
Famous Among the Barns in tribute to Dylan Thomas.
Solaris, Chris Kelvin (George Clooney) reads the first stanza of And Death Shall Have no Dominion.
Reuben, Reuben on which a 1983 movie was based, the character Gowan McGland is loosely based on Dylan Thomas.
- The German band Chamber used two poems by Dylan Thomas on their debut album
Chamber: L'orchestre de chambre noir: "The conversation of prayer" (used for the song "Another conversation") and "Ceremony after a fire raid".
Back To School Rodney Dangerfield recites "Do not go gentle into that good night" for his oral exam.
The Edge Of Love (2008) is based on part of Thomas' life in Swansea during World War II. He is portrayed by actor Matthew Rhys.
And death shall have no dominion was read as the album introduction on Anti-Meridian by Brave Saint Saturn.
- Dannie Abse wrote an "Elegy for Dylan Thomas" in his poetry collection
Welsh Retrospective.
- American actor Dylan Thomas Sprouse is named after this poet.
- The American folk-singer Bob Dylan, whose real name is Robert Zimmerman, took his name from Dylan Thomas.
Bibliography
Poetry
18 Poems (1934)[OOP] 25 Poems (1936) [OOP] The Map of Love (1939) [OOP] New Poems (1943) [OOP] Deaths and Entrances (1946) [OOP] Twenty-Six Poems (1950) [OOP] In Country Sleep (1952) [OOP] Collected Poems, 1934-1952 (1952)
Prose
Collected Letters Collected Stories Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog (1940 Dent) Quite Early One Morning (posthumous) Adventures In The Skin Trade And Other Stories (1955, posthumous) Selected Writings of Dylan Thomas (1946) [OOP] A Prospect of the Sea (1955) [OOP] A Child's Christmas in Wales (1955) Letters to Vernon Watkins (1957) Rebecca's Daughters (1965) After the Fair The Tree The Dress The Visitor The Vest
Drama
Under Milk Wood The Doctor and the Devils and Other Scripts (1953)
Misc Bibliography
The Beach of Falesa (1964) [OOP] Dylan Thomas - a Collection of Critical Essays: Charles B. Cox (ed.) (1966) [OOP] Selected Works (The Map of Love, Selected Poems and Under Milk Wood) Guild Publishing, London 1982 The Collected Stories of Dylan Thomas (1984) The Poems of Dylan Thomas (1979) On the Air With Dylan Thomas: The Broadcasts Eight Stories (1993) Dylan Thomas: The Complete Screenplays (1995) Fern Hill: An Illustrated edition of the Dylan Thomas poem. [1998] Collected Poems 1934 – 1953 (London: Phoenix, 2003) Selected Poems (London: Phoenix, 2001)
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)) Under Milk Wood, 1972, starring Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, and Peter O'Toole A Child's Christmas in Wales, a 1987 film based on Dylan Thomas's work of the same name. Directed by Don McBrearty. Rebecca's Daughters starring Peter O'Toole and Joely Richardson
Other media representations
Dylan, movie about Dylan Thomas's final visit to America, concluding with his death in New York on 9 November, 1953. Directed by Richard Lewis. 1990-91: Dylan Thomas: Return Journey, a one-man stage show featuring Bob Kingdom as Thomas and directed by Anthony Hopkins. 2008: The Edge of Love, movie about WWII events starring Matthew Rhys as the poet. 2008: Marillion's 2008 Christmas CD (Pudding On The Ritz) contains a reading of A Child's Christmas In Wales put to music written by the band.
A Broadway play, Dylan, by Sidney Michaels with Alec Guinness as Dylan, circa 1964.
Further reading
Dylan Thomas in America: an intimate journal, 1957 Thomas, Caitlin Leftover Life to Kill, 1957 Thomas, David N. Fatal Neglect: Who Killed Dylan Thomas? David N. Thomas, Seren 2008 Thomas, David N. Dylan Remembered – Volume 2: 1935 – 1953, Seren 2004 Thomas, David N. Dylan Remembered - Volume 1: 1913 – 1934, Seren 2003 Thomas, David N. The Dylan Thomas Murders, Seren 2002 Thomas, David N. Dylan Thomas: A Farm, Two Mansions and a Bungalow, Seren 2000 Lycett, Andrew. Dylan Thomas - A new life, 2003
Impact on other cultural figures
- Musician Bob Dylan once said the work of Dylan Thomas influenced the change of his name from Zimmerman to Dylan. On other occasions Dylan attributed this to Marshal Matt Dillon in
Gunsmoke. 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, as well as a musical setting of A Child's Christmas in Wales on his album Paris 1919. American author Shirley Jackson met Thomas once briefly in her family home and wrote several short stories dedicated to and loosely based around Thomas. Leeds-based band Chumbawamba loosely borrowed from the poem "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" in the songs "Rage" from the album Anarchy and "Song for Derek Jarman" from the Homophobia EP. American band Brave Saint Saturn quoted a portion of the poem "And death shall have no dominion" in the song "Here is the News" from the album Anti-Meridian.
External links
- Biography, poems, audio clips, and essays
- The Independent online edition 30 November 2005
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