Dylan Thomas

Dylan Thomas
Dylan Marlais Thomas 1914-53 Dylan Marlais Thomas 1914-53
Occupation	Poet
Literary movement	Modernism Romanticism
Spouse	Caitlin Macnamara (1937-1953)
Children	Llewelyn Edouard Thomas (1939-2000) Aeronwy Bryn Thomas (b. 1942) Colm Garan Hart Thomas (b. 1949)

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 front upstairs bedroom at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive, situated in the Uplands area of Swansea, Wales, UK 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 he. 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 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, now the South Wales Evening 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' on High 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'. High Street was just one of the many streets in Swansea that suffered badly; the rows of shops on High Street, 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). 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 his wife Caitlin MacNamara; they met in the Wheatsheaf public house, in the Fitzrovia area of London's West End. A drunken Thomas proposed marriage on the spot, to the dancer Caitlin, 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; Caitlin had an affair with Augustus John before, and quite possibly after, she married Thomas.

Alcoholism

Dylan's image on the pub sign of his Laugharne 'local', Browns Hotel.

Thomas liked to boast about his drinking, saying;

"An alcoholic is someone you don't like, who drinks as much as you do."

Thomas "liked the taste of beer," and he did quite his fair share of drinking, although the amount he drank 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 drunk 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)
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.

New York and death

May 1953 saw the world premiere of Thomas's play Under Milk Wood, with Thomas himself playing the part of the narrator. The assistant director was one Liz Reitell—it was Reitell's task to help put the play on the stage, including finding a suitable cast. Thomas engaged in a love affair with Reitell though, to her, their initial meeting was a disappointment. The play itself was a great triumph, even though the final draft for the ending of Under Milk Wood was completed just before the actors went on stage, with the help of Reitell herself. It was because of this performance that Thomas was asked to work on the libretto of an opera for the composer, Igor Stravinsky. Thomas's health rapidly began to deteriorate as a result of excessive drinking; he was warned by his doctor to give up alcohol but carried on regardless.

On 3 November 1953, Thomas and Reitell celebrated his 39th birthday and the success of 18 Poems. On 5 November, at the White Horse Tavern, Greenwich Village, Manhattan, Thomas began to feel ill. He decided go back to his room at the Hotel Chelsea, where he later collapsed and slipped into a coma. An ambulance was called, which took him to St Vincent's Hospital. Thomas died four days later on 9 November 1953 at around 1 pm.

Recorded causes of death included pneumonia, a result of the coma, and pressure upon the brain. Emphysema was also noted, due to Thomas's smoking habit and possibly his intake of morphine. His liver, according to the pathologist, was surprisingly healthier than one would have imagined. "Chronic alcohol poisoning" was eventually ruled as the official cause of death.

His last words, according to Jack Heliker, were: "After 40 years, this is all I've done." However, various sources state that Thomas's last words were to Reitell: "Yes, I believe you," after she tried to reassure him about his sudden illness. Others say his last words were, "I love you, but I am alone," again said to Liz Reitell. A popular myth is that Thomas's last words were, "I've had eighteen straight whiskies, I think that is a record."

It has also been said that the only person to be in the room with Dylan Thomas when he died was the poet John Berryman.

According to Walford Davies, after he went into a coma he was accidentally injected with an overdose of morphine.

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.

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

See also: Cultural depictions of Dylan Thomas

Statue of Dylan Thomas in Swansea's maritime quarter, unveiled by Lady Mary Wilson.

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.

Dylan's £5 writing shed overlooking the Afon Taf, near the Boat House, Laugharne. It cost £75 to erect on its cliff-ledge platform in the 1920s, when it was used to garage a Wolseley car.

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'.

Thomas's 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, 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

• 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 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.

• Musician Ben Taylor named his 2003 album Famous Among the Barns in tribute to Dylan Thomas.

• In Solaris (2002 film), Chris Kelvin (George Clooney) reads the first stanza of "And Death Shall Have no Dominion."

• In Peter De Vries’s 1964 novel 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'.

• In the film Back To School Rodney Dangerfield recites "Do not go gentle into that good night" for his oral exam.

• The film 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.

• A portion of And death shall have no dominion was read as the album introduction on Anti-Meridian by Brave Saint Saturn.

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]
• Selected Works (The Map of Love, Selected Poems and Under Milk Wood) Guild Publishing, London 1982
• 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))
• 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.

Representations in Other Media

• 1978: Dylan, about Dylan Thomas's final visit to America, concluding with his death in New York on 9th November, 1953. Directed by Richard Lewis.
• 1990: Dylan Thomas: Return Journey, a one-man show featuring Bob Kingdom as Thomas and directed by Anthony Hopkins.
• 2008: The Edge of Love, starring Matthew Rhys as the poet.

Further reading

• Brinnin, J M Dylan Thomas in America: an intimate journal, 1957
• Thomas, Caitlin Leftover Life to Kill, 1957

Impact on other cultural figures

• Musician Bob Dylan was influenced by the work of Dylan Thomas to change his name from Zimmerman to Dylan. "What I was going to do as soon as I left home was just call myself Robert Allen...It sounded like a Scottish king and I liked it." However, in reading Down Beat magazine, he discovered there was a saxophonist named David Allyn. Dylan adds, "I'd seen some poems by Dylan Thomas. Dylan and Allyn sounded similar. Robert Dylan. Robert Allyn. The letter D came on stronger."
• 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, 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 band Chumbawamba 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"

• The poet Rehan Qayoom wrote a parody of 'If I were tickled by the rub of love' called 'If I were pickled by the nub of love' in Thomas' style.

External links

• The Life and Work of Dylan Thomas (archive)
• The Dylan Thomas Boathouse at Laugharne
• Remembering Dylan Thomas - Includes a list of the most expensive sales of his works
• Listen to Dylan Thomas. BBC Broadcast (6 May 1953) 'Remembering Childhood'
• Dylan Thomas on Poets.org Biography, poems, audio clips, and essays
• "The Mumbles", a village frequented by Thomas
• Dylan Thomas Official Web Site (city of Swansea)
• BBC Wales' Dylan Thomas site
• The Dylan Thomas Theatre Company Swansea
• "Hellraiser's pub: The poet, the actor, a furore" The Independent online edition 30 November 2005
• BBC Wales biography of Caitlin
• Obituary of son Llewelyn, from Guardian Unlimited (2000)
• Guardian article about two new films of Caitlin's life
• A Child's Christmas in Wales
• The official Dylan Thomas bookshop
• Dylans Book Store (Swansea)
• Dylan Thomas Centre, Swansea
• Living with Legends: Hotel Chelsea Blog