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ENTRY: Thomas, Dylan
Dylan Thomas, (b. October 27, 1914 – d. November 9, 1953) was a Welsh poet and writer.
Thomas was born in the port city of Swansea, Wales. Thomas schooled at
Swansea Grammar School where his father taught English Literature.
He left to become a journalist, and his first poetry volume, 18 Poems,
was published in November 1934. In his early work he consulted greatly with
fellow poet Vernon Watkins.
Brought to the attention of the public by the discerning eye of the
English mystic poet Victor Benjamin Neuburg, the poetry editor of the Sunday Referee,
Thomas was invited to London by Neuburg and introduced to the capital's influential literary critics.
In 1937 Thomas married Caitlin MacNamara and would have three children with her.
Dylan Thomas is widely considered one of the greatest twentieth-century poets writing in English. He
remains the leading figure in Anglo-Welsh literature. His visionary and often fantastic
imagery was a rejection of Modernist trends in twentieth-century verse. While
his contemporaries gradually altered their writing to serious topical verse
(left-wing political and socialist concerns were de-rigeur in the 1930s),
Thomas gave himself over to his passionately felt emotions, to nature, and his writing
is often both intensely personal and fiercely lyrical.
Thomas, in many ways, was more in alignment with the Romantics
than he was with the poets of his era. Thomas also differed from many
major twentieth-century poets (dating from the Imagists onwards)
in his championing of oral poetry. In this sense, Thomas was well-adapted
to his time: his rise coincides with the improvement and profusion of recording
technology, record-players and radio.
Aside from stories and verse, Thomas did a great deal of radio and film work;
especially during the Second World War, for which he was judged too frail to serve.
His radio broadcasts were generally literary talks;
Under Milk Wood seems to have originated in a radio talk.
An alcoholic, Thomas died at St. Vincent's Hospital, New York, aged only 39.
His was buried at the village churchyard at Laugharne, Wales,
where he had enjoyed his happiest days.
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