Dylan Thomas :: Biography Biographies Essays

Dylan Thomas There is in the Welsh bardic tradition whatsoever(prenominal) that is absolutely fundamental to Thomas writing its highly lyrical qualities its strict nominal control and an essentially romantic conception of the poets function in society. (Selby 98) These traits replicate the three themes that will be belaboured in this essay the aural/ literal appeal of Dylan Thomas work his meticulous obscurity and the role of the poet in society. I One of Thomas more controversial and distinctive characteristics is his musicality. It is surprising that anyone would bring this up as a complaint music is considered by many to be the purest blind, and the highest poetry that which approaches nearest to music. Perhaps it is understandable that those critics who would limit meaning and contextualise art would also be aesthetically oriented such that they would find it offence that a form for the eyes and mind should be so solicitous of the lips and ears. It is also suggested that Thomas may be sacrificing meaning to sound, but this is awkward to swallow when one considers the amount of effort he puts into codification (showing aid to meaning) and the fact that his poems simply arent nonsense. While attention to sound is considered a forgivable matter in many modern critical streams, it has always vie a privileged part in Romantic aesthetics Sounds as well as thoughts have relation both between separately other and towards that which they represent, and a perception of the order of those relations has always been appoint connected with a perception of the order of the relations of thoughts. Hence the terminology of poets have ever affected a certain uniform and symmetrical recurrence of sound, without which it were not poetry, and which is scarcely less indispensable to the communication of its influence, than the words themselves, without reference to that peculiar order. (Shelley 92) Even if it is true that the sound in some way detracts from the meaning, it is only in a temporary fashion, and is measured. Stewart Crehan suggests Thomas obscurity is calculated to foreground sound and its pleasures before the meaning sinks in. (Crehan 42) The sound has a mesmerizing quality which opens up the mind and makes it more susceptible to the subtle suggestions of obscure metaphysical musings.