82-563: 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 " And death shall have no dominion ", as well as the "play for voices" Under Milk Wood . He also wrote stories and radio broadcasts such as A Child's Christmas in Wales and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog . He became widely popular in his lifetime; and remained so after his death at
164-432: A British Council commission and a bi-lingual production. These Are The Men (1943) was a more ambitious piece in which Thomas's 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 pneumonia and tuberculosis . Our Country (1945) was a romantic tour of Britain set to Thomas's poetry. Thomas continued to work in
246-626: A Dawn Raid Was a Man Aged a Hundred (1941) - and for child victims of incendiary bombing raids in Ceremony After a Fire Raid (1944) and A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London (1945). They were collected in Deaths and Entrances , the fourth volume of his poetry, published in 1946. The sentiments expressed in his war poems were, according to Walford Davies, representative of “the real temper of
328-669: 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. He appeared in the play Comus for the Third Programme, the day after the network launched, and his rich, sonorous voice led to character parts, including the lead in Aeschylus's Agamemnon and Satan in an adaptation of Paradise Lost . Thomas remained
410-515: A degree of fame, while his erratic behaviour and drinking worsened. During his fourth trip to New York in 1953, Thomas became gravely ill and fell into a coma. He died on 9 November, and his body was returned to Wales. On 25 November, he was interred at St. Martin's churchyard in Laugharne , Carmarthenshire. Although Thomas wrote exclusively in the English language , he has been acknowledged as one of
492-874: A dentist, Randy Fulleylove. The young Dylan also holidayed with them in Abergavenny , where Fulleylove had his practice. Thomas's paternal grandparents, Anne and Evan Thomas, lived at The Poplars in Johnstown, just outside Carmarthen . Anne was the daughter of William Lewis, a gardener in the town. She had been born and brought up in Llangadog , as had her father, who is thought to be "Grandpa" in Thomas's short story A Visit to Grandpa's , in which Grandpa expresses his determination to be buried not in Llansteffan but in Llangadog. Evan worked on
574-459: A drunken Thomas proposed. Thomas liked to assert 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 May 1938, they moved to Wales, renting a cottage in
656-537: A few months before his birth. Thomas has written a number of accounts of his childhood growing up in Swansea, and there are also accounts available by those who knew him as a young child. Thomas wrote several poems about his childhood and early teenage years, including "Once it was the colour of saying" and "The hunchback in the park", as well as short stories such as The Fight and A Child's Christmas in Wales . Thomas's four grandparents played no part in his childhood. For
738-514: A history of bringing up blood and mucus - proved to be the grounds for the military authorities to allocate him a C3 category medical exemption which meant that he would be among the last to be called up for service. He would subsequently be recognised as engaged in essential war work through his role in broadcasting for the BBC and documentary film making, work he took up in 1941 after he and Caitlin moved to London, leaving their son with Caitlin’s mother at Blashford . Thomas produced film scripts for
820-484: A lifelong friendship. Thomas introduced Watkins, working at Lloyds Bank at the time, to his friends, now known as The Kardomah Gang . In those days, Thomas used to frequent the cinema on Mondays with Tom Warner who, like Watkins, had recently suffered a nervous breakdown . After these trips, Warner would bring Thomas back for supper with his aunt. On one occasion, when she served him a boiled egg, she had to cut its top off for him, as Thomas did not know how to do this. This
902-619: A number of convenience stores, hairdressers, fashion boutiques, pubs and restaurants. The area is becoming increasingly known amongst the people of Swansea for its night-life, with a number of late-night bars and restaurants having opened their doors during the early 2010s, which, along with a diverse range of independent shops and a monthly local produce market in Gwydr Square, put Uplands in TravelSupermarket's top 20 UK Hip Hang-outs in 2017. The Uplands Tavern pub however, has long been
SECTION 10
#1732844263118984-415: A pair of stone cottages to which his mother's Swansea siblings had retired, and with whom the young Thomas and his sister, Nancy, would sometimes stay. A couple of miles down the road from Blaencwm is the village of Llansteffan, where Thomas used to holiday at Rose Cottage with another Welsh-speaking aunt, Anne Williams, his mother's half-sister who had married into local gentry. Anne's daughter, Doris, married
1066-474: A period of fertility that recalls the earliest days…[with a] great outpouring of poems", as well as a good deal of other material. His second biographer, Paul Ferris , agreed: "On the grounds of output, the bungalow deserves a plaque of its own." Thomas's third biographer, George Tremlett , concurred, describing the time in New Quay as "one of the most creative periods of Thomas's life." Walford Davies, who co-edited
1148-596: A popular guest on radio talk shows for the BBC, who regarded him as "useful should a younger generation poet be needed". He 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". By late September 1945, the Thomases had left Wales and were living with various friends in London. In December, they moved to Oxford to live in
1230-538: A popular poet during his lifetime, though he found earning a living as a writer difficult. He began augmenting his income with reading tours and radio broadcasts. His radio recordings for the BBC during the late 1940s brought him to the public's attention, and he was frequently featured by the BBC as an accessible voice of the literary scene. Thomas first travelled to the United States in the 1950s; his readings there brought him
1312-484: A popular venue, and was once frequented by Sir Kingsley Amis and Dylan Thomas , although the two writers were not residents of Uplands at the same time. The latter's childhood home on Cwmdonkin Drive has a blue plaque marking his birthplace. In 2012 the annual Do Not Go Gentle Festival was launched, hosting live music and literature across various venues, it aims to be "a festival Dylan Thomas might have liked". Uplands
1394-522: A recurring event in the family's history, and it's said that she herself had lost a child soon after her marriage. But if Thomas was protected and spoiled at home, the real spoilers were his many aunts and older cousins, those in both Swansea and the Llansteffan countryside. Some of them played an important part in both his upbringing and his later life, as Thomas's wife, Caitlin, has observed: "He couldn't stand their company for more than five minutes... Yet Dylan couldn't break away from them, either. They were
1476-704: 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. The Thomas family also made several escapes back to Wales. Between 1941 and 1943, they lived intermittently in Plas Gelli, Talsarn , in Cardiganshire. Plas Gelli sits close by
1558-639: A summerhouse on the banks of the Cherwell. It belonged to the historian, A. J. P. Taylor . His wife, Margaret, would prove to be Thomas's most committed patron. The publication of Deaths and Entrances in February 1946 was a major turning point for Thomas. Poet and critic Walter J. Turner commented in The Spectator , "This book alone, in my opinion, ranks him as a major poet". Do not go gentle into that good night " Do not go gentle into that good night "
1640-623: A teacher. 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 . Thomas had one sibling, Nancy Marles (1906–1953), who was eight years his senior. At the 1921 census, Nancy and Dylan are noted as speaking both Welsh and English. Their parents were also bilingual in English and Welsh, and Jack Thomas taught Welsh at evening classes. One of their Swansea relations has recalled that, at home, "Both Auntie Florrie and Uncle Jack always spoke Welsh." There are three accounts from
1722-442: A theory". Despite this, many of the group, including Henry Treece , modelled their work on Thomas's. In the politically charged atmosphere of the 1930s Thomas's sympathies were very much with the radical left, to the point of his holding close links with the communists ; he was also decidedly pacifist and anti-fascist. He was a supporter of the left-wing No More War Movement and boasted about participating in demonstrations against
SECTION 20
#17328442631181804-588: A wood and asbestos bungalow on the cliffs overlooking Cardigan Bay. It was there that Thomas wrote a radio piece about New Quay, 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 , started while living in New Quay, continued at Blaencwm in July and August 1945 and first published in October 1945 Thomas's nine months in New Quay, said first biographer, Constantine FitzGibbon, were "a second flowering,
1886-854: Is a Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall on the corner of Walter Road and Mirador Crescent, and the Dharmavajra Kadampa Buddhist Centre is located in Springfield House on Ffynone Road. The Mansion House, the official residence of the Lord Mayor of Swansea, is also on Ffynone Road. The Llwyn-Y-Bryn campus of Gower College Swansea is located just off Walter Road. There are two private schools in the area; Oakleigh House provides primary education and Ffynone House provides senior education for GCSE and A-Level pupils. Local parks are Cwmdonkin Park , Rosehill Quarry Community Park, and Brynmill Park , with
1968-524: Is a poem in the form of a villanelle by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (1914–1953), and is one of his best-known works. Though first published in the journal Botteghe Oscure in 1951, the poem was written in 1947 while Thomas visited Florence with his family. The poem was subsequently included, alongside other works by Thomas, in In Country Sleep, and Other Poems ( New Directions , 1952) and Collected Poems, 1934–1952 ( Dent , 1952). The poem entered
2050-492: Is a relatively salubrious area of Swansea, with property prices above the national average. Council tax rates are quite high because of this, falling into band C and above. The housing stock consists of fairly large properties; three-storey properties and properties containing four bedrooms or more are common. Many of the larger properties have been converted into student houses, making the Uplands area popular amongst students attending
2132-535: Is also an account of the young Thomas being taught how to swear in Welsh. His schoolboy friends recalled that "It was all Welsh—and the children played in Welsh...he couldn't speak English when he stopped at Fernhill...in all his surroundings, everybody else spoke Welsh..." At the 1921 census, 95% of residents in the two parishes around Fernhill were Welsh speakers. Across the whole peninsula, 13%—more than 200 people—spoke only Welsh. A few fields south of Fernhill lay Blaencwm,
2214-514: Is portrayed more accurately in his short story, The Peaches . Thomas also spent part of his summer holidays with Jim's sister, Rachel Jones, at neighbouring Pentrewyman farm, where he spent his time riding Prince the cart horse, chasing pheasants and fishing for trout. All these relatives were bilingual, and many worshipped at Smyrna chapel in Llangain where the services were always in Welsh, including Sunday School which Thomas sometimes attended. There
2296-496: Is where Conservative politician Michael Heseltine grew up. The crescent consists mainly of large three-storey semi-detached and terraced 4–6 bedroom town-houses. During the late 1980s, a large number of properties were converted for use as student houses, but since the late 1990s it has mainly returned to housing families. Stella Maris is a convent occupied by the Sisters of Ursulines of Jesus on Eaton Crescent. The sisters once ran
2378-841: The British Union of Fascists . Bert Trick has provided an extensive account of an Oswald Mosley rally in the Plaza cinema in Swansea in July 1933 that he and Thomas attended. In early 1936, Thomas met Caitlin Macnamara (1913–1994), a 22-year-old dancer of Irish and French Quaker 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,
2460-522: The Llansteffan peninsula, a Welsh-speaking part of Carmarthenshire. In the land between Llangain and Llansteffan, his mother's family, the Williamses and their close relatives, worked a dozen farms with over a thousand acres between them. The memory of Fernhill, a dilapidated 15-acre farm rented by his maternal aunt, Ann Jones, and her husband, Jim Jones, is evoked in the 1945 lyrical poem " Fern Hill ", but
2542-690: The Oscar Blumenthal Prize for Poetry; it was also the year in which New Directions offered to be his publisher in the United States. In all, he wrote half his poems while living at Cwmdonkin Drive before moving to London. During this time Thomas's reputation for heavy drinking developed. 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
Dylan Thomas - Misplaced Pages Continue
2624-466: The River Aeron , after whom Aeronwy is thought to have been named. Some of Thomas's letters from Gelli can be found in his Collected Letters whilst an extended account of Thomas's time there can be found in D. N. Thomas's book, Dylan Thomas: A Farm, Two Mansions and a Bungalow (2000). The Thomases shared the mansion with his childhood friends from Swansea, Vera and Evelyn Phillips. Vera's friendship with
2706-503: The public domain on 1 January 2024. It has been suggested that the poem was written for Thomas's dying father, although he did not die until just before Christmas in 1952. It has no title other than its first line, "Do not go gentle into that good night", a line that appears as a refrain throughout the poem along with its other refrain, "Rage, rage against the dying of the light". Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against
2788-464: The "Warmley Broadcasting Corporation". This group of writers, musicians and artists became known as " The Kardomah Gang ". This was also the period of his friendship with Bert Trick, a local shopkeeper, left-wing political activist and would-be poet, and with the Rev. Leon Atkin , a Swansea minister, human rights activist and local politician. In 1933, Thomas visited London for probably the first time. Thomas
2870-517: 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 / ˈ d ɪ l ən / . The red-brick semi-detached house at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive (in the respectable area of the Uplands ), in which Thomas was born and lived until he was 23, had been bought by his parents
2952-540: The 1940s of Dylan singing Welsh hymns and songs, and of speaking a little Welsh. Thomas's 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 ˈ [ˈdəlan] (Dull-an) in Welsh, caused his mother to worry that he might be teased as
3034-516: The 1995 definitive edition of the play, has noted that New Quay "was crucial in supplementing the gallery of characters Thomas had to hand for writing Under Milk Wood ." Thomas’s horror of war, adumbrated in some of his poems of the 1930s and fuelled by his lived experience of the of bombing raids and fire storms of the Blitz in London, received full expression in his poems of the war period. These include elegies for an elderly man - Among Those Killed in
3116-714: The 90 poems he published, half were written during these years. The stage was also an important part of Thomas's life from 1929 to 1934, as an actor, writer, producer and set painter. He took part in productions at Swansea Grammar School, and with the YMCA Junior Players and the Little Theatre , which was based in the Mumbles . It was also a touring company that took part in drama competitions and festivals around South Wales. Between October 1933 and March 1934, for example, Thomas and his fellow actors took part in five productions at
3198-460: The Artist as a Young Dog (1940), were based less on lavish fantasy than those in 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 creditors, Thomas and his family left Laugharne in July 1940 and moved to
3280-661: The BBC, it was a minor and intermittent source of income. In 1943, he wrote and recorded a 15-minute talk titled "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 BBC London turned it down. On 31 August 1945, the BBC Home Service broadcast Quite Early One Morning and, in
3362-673: The British people of the time - the resilience and the guts”. From September 1941 Thomas worked for the Strand Film Company in London. Strand produced films for the Ministry of Information and Thomas produced film scripts for six such films in 1942: This is Colour (on aniline dye processing), New Towns for Old , Balloon Site 568 (a recruitment film), CEMA (on arts organisation), Young Farmers and Battle for Freedom . He also scripted and produced Wales – Green Mountain, Black Mountain ,
Dylan Thomas - Misplaced Pages Continue
3444-645: The Mumbles theatre, as well as nine touring performances. Thomas continued with acting and production throughout his life, including his time in Laugharne, South Leigh and London (in the theatre and on radio), as well as taking part in nine stage readings of Under Milk Wood . The Shakespearian actor, John Laurie , who had worked with Thomas on both the stage and radio thought that Thomas would "have loved to have been an actor" and, had he chosen to do so, would have been "Our first real poet-dramatist since Shakespeare." Painting
3526-522: The Stella Maris Primary School, a former private convent school that is now closed. St. James' Church, located on Walter Road, was opened in 1867 as a chapel of ease for the nearby St. Mary's in Swansea's town centre. It became a separate parish in 1985. Pantygwydr Baptist Church was opened in 1907 during the development of housing on the land of the demolished Pant-y-gwydir House, once the residence of industrialist J. R. Wright . There
3608-598: The Strand Film Company, work which provided him with a much needed financial mainstay throughout the war years and his first regular source of income since working for the South Wales Daily Post . 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
3690-590: The Swansea Little Theatre (see below) with the parts they were playing. Thomas's parents' storytelling and dramatic talents, as well as their theatre-going interests, could also have contributed to the young Thomas's interest in performance. In October 1925, Thomas enrolled at Swansea Grammar School for boys, in Mount Pleasant , where his father taught English. There are several accounts by his teachers and fellow pupils of Thomas's time at grammar school. He
3772-436: The Thomases in nearby New Quay is portrayed in the 2008 film The Edge of Love . In July 1944, with the threat in London of German flying bombs , Thomas moved to the family cottage at Blaencwm near Llangain , Carmarthenshire, where he resumed writing poetry, completing "Holy Spring" and "Vision and Prayer". In September that year, the Thomas family moved to New Quay in Cardiganshire (Ceredigion), where they rented Majoda,
3854-544: The age of 39 in New York City. By then, he had acquired a reputation, which he had encouraged, as a "roistering, drunken and doomed poet". Dylan Marlais Thomas was the son of David John Thomas, a school master, and Florence Hannah Williams who married in 1903 and were living in Sketty Avenue, Sketty, Swansea when the 1911 Census was taken. Their daughter Nancy, born 1906, was not at home with them on Census Day. Dylan Thomas
3936-462: The background from which he had sprung, and he needed that background all his life, like a tree needs roots.". Thomas's 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 Reminiscences of Childhood : Never was there such a dame school as ours, so firm and kind and smelling of galoshes, with
4018-423: The bombed-out shell of the town centre with his friend Bert Trick. Upset at the sight, he concluded: "Our Swansea is dead". Thomas later wrote a feature programme for the radio, Return Journey , which described the café as being "razed to the snow". The programme, produced by Philip Burton , was first broadcast on 15 June 1947. The Kardomah Café reopened on Portland Street after the war. In early 1943, Thomas began
4100-618: 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 and the musician and composer, Daniel Jones with whom, as teenagers, Thomas had helped to set up
4182-486: The city's two universities. Though a community (civil parish) of Swansea, Uplands doesn't elect a community council . The community is coterminous with an electoral ward to Swansea Council , also named Uplands . At the 2022 Swansea Council election all four councillor seats were won by the Uplands Party . Eaton Crescent, considered to be one of the most upmarket residential areas close to Swansea's city centre,
SECTION 50
#17328442631184264-437: The dying of the light. And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. The villanelle consists of five stanzas of three lines ( tercets ) followed by a single stanza of four lines (a quatrain ) for a total of nineteen lines. It is structured by two repeating rhymes and two refrains :
4346-587: The dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night. Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against
4428-449: The east, and becomes Sketty Road towards the west. Much of the area is hilly. The population of the community and ward in 2011 was 15,665 and in terms of Welsh identity had the lowest percentage in the county. Uplands' main shopping area is located on and around Uplands Crescent, where small businesses mix with fast-food outlets and high-street heavyweights like Boots , Sainsbury's and Tesco . The western side of Bryn-y-Mor Road also has
4510-432: The film industry Thomas produced 28 film scripts (not all of which reached production) as well as acting as producer and director in some cases. When recession overtook the film industry in the late 1940s he lost his most reliable source of income. The experience he gained in his film work was a significant factor, according to Walford Davies, in the maturation of Under Milk Wood . Although Thomas had previously written for
4592-554: The film industry after the war, working on feature film scripts which included: No Room at the Inn (1948), The Three Weird Sisters (1948), The Doctor and the Devils (1944 - not produced until 1985) and Rebecca's Daughters (1948 - not produced until 1992). His screenplay for The Beach of Falesá , not produced as a film, received a BBC Radio 3 production in May 2014. Altogether in his work in
4674-531: The first line of the first stanza serves as the last line of the second and fourth stanzas, and the third line of the first stanza serves as the last line of the third and fifth stanzas. In the first stanza, the speaker encourages his father not to "go gentle into that good night" but rather to "rage, rage against the dying of the light." Then, in the subsequent stanzas, he proceeds to list all manner of men, using terms such as "wise", "good", "wild", and "grave" as descriptors, who, in their own respective ways, embody
4756-568: The first ten years or so of his life, Thomas's Swansea aunts and uncles helped with his upbringing. These were his mother's three siblings, Polly and Bob, who lived in the St Thomas district of Swansea and Theodosia, and her husband, the Rev. David Rees, in Newton, Swansea, where parishioners recall Thomas sometimes staying for a month or so at a time. All four aunts and uncles spoke Welsh and English. Thomas's childhood also featured regular summer trips to
4838-466: The former an important location and source of inspiration for Dylan Thomas, who lived so close to the park during his childhood that "on summer evenings I could listen, in my bed, to the voices of other children playing ball" . Cwmdonkin Park features heavily in the radio broadcasts 'Return Journey' and 'Reminiscences of Childhood' and, most famously, the poem 'The hunchback in the park'. A memorial stone with lines from another of Thomas' poems, 'Fern Hill',
4920-759: The home of critic John Davenport in Marshfield near Chippenham in Gloucestershire . 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 , worried about conscription , Thomas unsuccessfully sought employment in a reserved occupation with the Ministry of Information . However, an “unreliable lung”, as he described his chronic condition - coughing sometimes confined him to bed, and he had
5002-416: The imagery is more allusive in nature, and that it "clearly evokes both King Lear on the heath and Gloucester thinking he is at Dover Cliff." "Do not go gentle into that good night" was used as the text for Igor Stravinsky 's In Memoriam Dylan Thomas (Dirge-Canons and Song) for tenor and chamber ensemble, which was written soon after Thomas's death and first performed in 1954. Other composers who set
SECTION 60
#17328442631185084-462: The most important Welsh poets of the 20th century. He is noted for his original, rhythmic, and ingenious use of words and imagery. His position as one of the great modern poets has been much discussed, and he remains popular with the public. Dylan Thomas was born on 27 October 1914 in Swansea , the son of Florence Hannah ( née Williams; 1882–1958), a seamstress , and David John 'Jack' Thomas (1876–1952),
5166-476: The poem features in the plot of the films Back to School (1986) and Dangerous Minds (1995). Uplands, Swansea Uplands is a suburb and community of Swansea , Wales . It lies about a mile (2 km) to the west of Swansea city centre , and falls within the Uplands electoral ward . It is centred on the A4118 road, which links Swansea city centre and Sketty . The main road begins as Walter Road from
5248-602: The poem to music include Vincent Persichetti (1976), Elliot del Borgo (1979), John Cale (1989, on Words for the Dying ), and Janet Owen Thomas (1999, in the final movement of her Under the Skin ) . Additionally, the poem is read in full on Iggy Pop 's album Free (2019). "Do not go gentle into that good night" was the inspiration for three paintings by Swansea-born painter and printmaker Ceri Richards , who drew them in 1954, 1956, and 1965 respectively. The poem influenced
5330-448: The poem's meaning are under general consensus. "This is obviously a threshold poem about death", Heaney writes, and Westphal agrees, noting that "[Thomas] is advocating active resistance to death." Heaney thinks that the poem's structure as a villanelle "[turns] upon itself, advancing and retiring to and from a resolution" in order to convey "a vivid figure of the union of opposites" that encapsulates "the balance between natural grief and
5412-426: The publication of Thomas's first book, 18 Poems , in December 1934. 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. 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
5494-401: The railways and was known as Thomas the Guard. His family had originated in another part of Welsh-speaking Carmarthenshire, in the farms that lay around the villages of Brechfa , Abergorlech , Gwernogle and Llanybydder , and which the young Thomas occasionally visited with his father. His father's side of the family also provided the young Thomas with another kind of experience; many lived in
5576-716: The recognition of necessity which pervades the poem as a whole." Westphal writes that the "sad height" Thomas refers to in line 16 is "of particular importance and interest in appreciating the poem as a whole." He asserts that it was not a literal structure, such as a bier , not only because of the literal fact that Thomas' father died after the poem's publication, but also because "it would be pointless for Thomas to advise his father not to 'go gentle' if he were already dead ..." Instead, he thinks that Thomas' phrase refers to "a metaphorical plateau of aloneness and loneliness before death". In his 2014 "Writers of Wales" biography of Thomas, Davies disagrees, instead believing that
5658-407: The refrains of the poem. In the final stanza, the speaker implores his father, whom he observes upon a "sad height", begging him to "Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears", and reiterates the refrains once more. While this poem has inspired a significant amount of unique discussion and analysis from such critics as Seamus Heaney , Jonathan Westphal , and Walford Davies, some interpretations of
5740-515: The school's mile race, held at St. Helen's Ground ; he carried a newspaper photograph of his victory with him until his death. In 1931, when he was 16, Thomas left school to become a reporter for the South Wales Daily Post , where he remained for some 18 months. After leaving the newspaper, Thomas continued to work as a freelance journalist for several years, during which time he remained at Cwmdonkin Drive and continued to add to his notebooks, amassing 200 poems in four books between 1930 and 1934. Of
5822-587: The sets at the Little Theatre was just one aspect of the young Thomas's interest in art. His own drawings and paintings hung in his bedroom in Cwmdonkin Drive, and his early letters reveal a broader interest in art and art theory. Thomas saw writing a poem as an act of construction "as a sculptor works at stone," later advising a student "to treat words as a craftsman does his wood or stone...hew, carve, mould, coil, polish and plane them..." Throughout his life, his friends included artists, both in Swansea and in London, as well as in America. In his free time, Thomas visited
5904-569: 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. Alongside dame school, Thomas also took private lessons from Gwen James, an elocution teacher who had studied at drama school in London, winning several major prizes. She also taught "Dramatic Art" and "Voice Production", and would often help cast members of
5986-519: The three years beginning in 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. In the second half of 1945, Thomas began reading for the BBC Radio programme, Book of Verse , broadcast weekly to the Far East. This provided Thomas with a regular income and brought him into contact with Louis MacNeice ,
6068-533: The town's estuarine bleakness, and the dismal lives of the women cockle pickers working the shore around him. From 1933 onwards, poet Victor Neuburg edited a section called "The Poet's Corner" in a British newspaper, the Sunday Referee . Here he encouraged new talent by awarding weekly prizes. One prize went to the then-unknown Thomas, and the publisher of the Sunday Referee sponsored and Neuburg arranged for
6150-474: The towns of the South Wales industrial belt, including Port Talbot , Pontarddulais and Cross Hands . Thomas had bronchitis and asthma in childhood and struggled with these throughout his life. He was indulged by his mother, Florence, and enjoyed being mollycoddled, a trait he carried into adulthood, becoming skilled in gaining attention and sympathy. But Florence would have known that child deaths had been
6232-427: The village of Laugharne , Carmarthenshire. They lived there intermittently for just under two years until July 1941, and did not return to live in Laugharne until 1949. Their first child, Llewelyn Edouard, was born on 30 January 1939. In 1939, a collection of 16 poems and seven of the 20 short stories published by Thomas in magazines since 1934, appeared as The Map of Love . Ten stories in his next book, Portrait of
6314-645: The writing of Mircea Cărtărescu 's novel Solenoid (2015). A phrase from the poem, "dying of the light", has been used in the titles of George R. R. Martin 's sci-fi novel Dying of the Light (1977) and a 2014 installment in Derek Landy 's Skulduggery Pleasant series. The poem is prominently referenced in Interstellar (2014), where the poem is used repeatedly by Michael Caine 's character John Brand, as well as by several other supporting characters. Additionally,
6396-642: 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. In May 1934, Thomas made his first visit to Laugharne, "the strangest town in Wales", as he described it in an extended letter to Pamela Hansford Johnson , in which he also writes about
6478-456: Was an undistinguished pupil who shied away from school, preferring reading and drama activities. In his first year one of his poems was published in the school's magazine, and before he left he became its editor. Thomas's various contributions to the school magazine can be found here: During his final school years he began writing poetry in notebooks; the first poem, dated 27 April (1930), is entitled "Osiris, come to Isis". In June 1928, Thomas won
6560-486: Was because his mother had done it for him all his life, an example of her coddling him. Years later, his wife Caitlin would still have to prepare his eggs for him. In December 1935, Thomas contributed the poem "The Hand That Signed the Paper" to Issue 18 of the bi-monthly New Verse . In 1936, his next collection Twenty-five Poems , published by J. M. Dent , also received much critical praise. Two years later, in 1938, Thomas won
6642-520: Was born in Uplands, Swansea , in 1914, leaving school in 1932 to become a reporter for the South Wales Daily Post . Many of his works appeared in print while he was still a teenager. In 1934, the publication of "Light breaks where no sun shines" caught the attention of the literary world. While living in London, Thomas met Caitlin Macnamara ; they married in 1937 and had three children: Llewelyn, Aeronwy , and Colm. He came to be appreciated as
6724-562: Was critically acclaimed, netting him new admirers from the London poetry world, including Edith Sitwell and Edwin Muir . 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 . The following year, in September 1935, Thomas met Vernon Watkins, thus beginning
#117882