Dylan Thomas as a poet
Ans. Dylan Thomas as a poet, Dylan Thomas has been recognised as the father of the neo-romantic poetry of the forties and the leader of the movement striking against over- intellectuality in poetry. He wrote strongly emotional poetry full of fervour and vigour.
His poetry abounds in vital energy and is vividly colourful and musical, “The depth and intensity of his passion, his verbal gift, the technical skill which underlies his metrical experiment all suggest that Dylan Thomas has the making of a great poet”.
Dylan Thomas was at heart a religious man. His vision of life was fundamentally religious and his faith burnt clearly and brightly in Death and Entrances. His poetry indeed conquered Death in wartime and ‘Opened Entrance to a fuller life”.
Critically appreciate Dylan Thomas
Dylan Thomas believed in immortality and perpetual life in cosmic eternity. He had the religious faith of a mystic who viewed the whole universe in comic unity.
It was his mission in poetry “To Embrace the unity of a man with nature, of generations which each other of the divine with the human of life with death, to see the glory and wonder of it.” Death could not terrify him:
“And. death shall have no dominion”. Deadmen naked they shall be one”
It is this thought which skrikes the note of triumph in a ceremony after a Fire Raid and Refusal to Mourn the Death by the fire of a child in London. One. dies but once and through that becomes reunited with the timeless unity of things.
Then where is the necessity of mourning? The nature poems of Dylan Thomas are equally delightful and impressive. In poems in October and Fern Hill. We find the poet feeling happy like a child in the lap of nature.
Dylan Thomas themes
In these poems ‘a passionate love of nature linked to childhood memories, produced a beauty that touches the heart and stirs the senses. The poems of Dylan Thomas are too closely packed with metaphor and symbolic imagery.
If we fail to grasp his symbolism, we lose much charm of his verse. A fair number of Thomas earlier poems are obscure because of their metaphor, symbolism and imagery. His attempt to push into the service of his muse every Biblical, Freudian or folk image, makes him obscure and difficult to comprehend.
His poetry has appeared in magazines and anthologies. His main works are 18 poems (1934), 25 poems (1936), The Map of Love (1938), Verse and Prose (1939), Deaths and Entrances (1946), The main followers of Dylan Thomas are Vernon walkings, Laurie Lee and John Health Stubbs.
The death of Dylan Thomas in 1953 robbed modern poetry of a budding and promising poet.
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