Dylan Thomas

Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953) was a Welsh poet[1][2]
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 [3] and the rhapsodic lyricism of
Fern Hill.

[edit] Early life

Dylan Thomas was born in the front upstairs bedroom at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive, situated in
the Uplands area of Swansea, Wales, 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 him. 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 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' in Castle 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'. Castle
Street was just one of the many streets in Swansea that suffered badly; the rows of shops,
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.

[edit] 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[4] 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 [5] He was saddened to see his friends enter active service leaving him
behind and drank whilst struggling to support his family [6]. 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.[7] 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).[8]

The publication of Deaths and Entrances in 1946 was a major turning point[9][10][11] in his
career. Thomas was well known for being a versatile and dynamic speaker, best known
for his poetry readings.[12] 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). The BBC credited their producer Stella Hillier with ensuring the play actually
materialised. Assigned "some of the more wayward characters who were then writing for
the BBC", she dragged the notoriously unreliable Thomas out of the pub and back to her
office to finish the work.[13]. Richard Burton starred in the first broadcast; he was joined
by Elizabeth Taylor in a subsequent film.

[edit] Marriage and children

In the spring of 1936, Dylan Thomas met Caitlin MacNamara, a dancer. They met in the
Wheatsheaf public house, in the Fitzrovia area of London's West End. They were
introduced by Augustus John, who was MacNamara's lover at the time (there were
rumours that she continued her relationship with John after she married Thomas). A
drunken Thomas proposed marriage on the spot, and the two began a courtship.[14]

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. In 2004, Thomas's
passionate love letters to MacNamara were auctioned.[15]

[edit] Addiction

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

Thomas liked to boast about his addiction, saying;

"An alcoholic is someone you don't like, who drinks as much as you do."[16]
Thomas "liked the taste of whisky," and he did quite his fair share of drinking, although
the amount he is supposed to have drunk 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 whisky, 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 imbibed 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.

[edit] Death
Dylan Thomas died in New York on November 9 1953. The first rumours were of a brain
haemorrhage, followed by reports that he’d been mugged. Soon came the stories about
booze, that he had drunk himself to death. Later, there were speculations about drugs and
diabetes.

He was already ill when he arrived in New York on October 20 to take part in Under
Milk Wood at the city’s prestigious Poetry Center. He had a history of blackouts and
chest problems, and was using an inhaler to help his breathing.

The director of the Center was John Brinnin. He was also Thomas’ tour agent, taking a
hefty twenty-five percent fee. Despite his duty of care, Brinnin remained at home in
Boston and handed responsibility to his ambitious assistant, Liz Reitell. She met Thomas
at Idlewild airport who told her that he had had a terrible week, had missed her terribly
and wanted to go to bed with her. Despite Liz's previous misgivings about their
relationship they spent the rest of the day and night together at the Chelsea.

The next day she invited him to her apartment but he declined saying that he was not
feeling well and retired to his bed for the rest of the afternoon.

After spending the night with him at the hotel Liz went back to her own apartment for a
change of clothes. At breakfast Herb Hannum noticed how sick Dylan was looking and
suggested a visit to a Dr Feltenstein before the performance of Under Milk Wood that
evening.

Liz would later describe him as a wild doctor who believed injections could cure
anything. He went quickly to work with his needle, and Thomas made it through the two
performances of Under Milk Wood, but collapsed straight afterwards.

October 27 was his thirty-ninth birthday. In the evening, he went to a party in his honour
but was so unwell that he returned to his hotel. A turning point came on November 2,
when air pollution rose to levels that were a threat to those with chest problems. By the
end of the month, over two hundred New Yorkers had died from the smog.

Thomas had an appointment to visit a clam-house in New Jersey on November 4, but

when telephoned at the Chelsea that morning he said that we was feeling awful and asked
to take a "rain-check". He did however accompany Liz to the White Horse for a few
beers. Feeling sick he again returned to the hotel.

Feltenstein came to see him three times that day, on the third call prescribing morphine.
This seriously affected Dylan's breathing. At midnight on November 4/5, his breathing
became more difficult and his face turned blue. Liz Reitell unsuccessfully tried to get
hold of Feltenstein. The night porter at the hotel then called the police who summoned an
ambulance.

By 1:58 am Thomas had been admitted to the emergency ward at nearby St Vincent’s, by
which time he was profoundly comatose. The doctors on duty found bronchitis in all
parts of his bronchial tree, both left and right sides. An X-ray showed pneumonia, and a
raised white cell count confirmed the presence of an infection. The hospital let the
pneumonia run its course and Thomas died on November 9.

At the post-mortem, the pathologist found that the immediate cause of death was swelling
of the brain, caused by the pneumonia reducing the supply of oxygen. Despite his heavy
drinking his liver showed little sign of cirrhosis. However there was pressure on the brain
from a build-up of cerebro-spinal fluid, caused by alcohol poisoning.

According to Lycett the main cause of Dylan's demise was the alcoholic co-dependent
relationship with his wife Caitlin, now doomed by her resentment at his betrayals in
America.[17]

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.

[edit] Style
Thomas's verbal style played against strict verse forms, such as the villanelle ("Do Not
Go Gentle into That Good Night"). His images were carefully ordered in a patterned
sequence, and his major theme was the unity of all life, the continuing process of life and
death and new life that linked the generations. Thomas saw biology as a magical
transformation producing unity out of diversity, and in his poetry he sought a poetic ritual
to celebrate this unity. He saw men and women locked in cycles of growth, love,
procreation, new growth, death, and new life again. Therefore, each image engenders its
opposite. Thomas derived his closely woven, sometimes self-contradictory images from
the Bible, Welsh folklore and preaching, and Freud. [18]

[edit] 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:[19]

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:[20]

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.[citation needed]

[edit] Thomas memorials

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
diesel multiple unit was named Dylan Thomas 1914 - 1953. In 2004 a new literary prize,
the Dylan Thomas Prize,[21] 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.

[edit] Cross-cultural tributes

 1965: A Simple Desultory Philippic (or How I Was Robert McNamara'd into
Submission), in this Paul Simon song, he refers to Dylan Thomas in the lyrics:
"When you mention Dylan, he thinks your talking about Dylan Thomas - whoever
he was!".

 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.

 In the 1994 film Before Sunrise, Ethan Hawke's character mimics Dylan Thomas's
voice, reading a fragment from As I Walked Out One Evening wrote by W.H.
Auden.

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

 In the 2002 film Solaris, 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.
  Dannie Abse wrote an "Elegy for Dylan Thomas" in his poetry collection Welsh
Retrospective.

[edit] Bibliography
[edit] Poetry

 18 Poems (1934)[OOP]
 25 Poems (1936) [OOP]
 The Map of Love (1939) [OOP]
 New Poems (1943) [OOP]
 Deaths and Entrances (1946) [OOP]
 Twenty-Six Poems (1950) [OOP]
 In Country Sleep (1952) [OOP]
 Collected Poems, 1934-1952 (1952)

[edit] Prose

 Collected Letters
 Collected Stories
 Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog (1940 Dent)
 Quite Early One Morning (posthumous)
 Adventures In The Skin Trade And Other Stories (1955, posthumous)
 Selected Writings of Dylan Thomas (1946) [OOP]
 A Prospect of the Sea (1955) [OOP]
 A Child's Christmas in Wales (1955)
 Letters to Vernon Watkins (1957)
 Rebecca's Daughters (1965)
 After the Fair
 The Tree
 The Dress
 The Visitor
 The Vest

[edit] Drama

 Under Milk Wood

 The Doctor and the Devils and Other Scripts (1953)
Dylan Thomas

Dylan Thomas was born in Wales in 1914. He was a neurotic, sickly child who shied
away from school and preferred reading on his own; he read all of D. H. Lawrence's
poetry, impressed by Lawrence's descriptions of a vivid natural world. Fascinated by
language, he excelled in English and reading, but neglected other subjects and dropped
out of school at sixteen. His first book, Eighteen Poems, was published to great acclaim
when he was twenty. Thomas did not sympathize with T. S. Eliot and W. H. Auden's
thematic concerns with social and intellectual issues, and his writing, with its intense
lyricism and highly charged emotion, has more in common with the Romantic tradition.
Thomas first visited America in January 1950, at the age of thirty-five. His reading tours
of the United States, which did much to popularize the poetry reading as new medium for
the art, are famous and notorious, for Thomas was the archetypal Romantic poet of the
popular American imagination: he was flamboyantly theatrical, a heavy drinker, engaged
in roaring disputes in public, and read his work aloud with tremendous depth of feeling.
He became a legendary figure, both for his work and the boisterousness of his life.
Tragically, he died from alcoholism at the age of 39 after a particularly long drinking
bout in New York City in 1953.

The Hand That Signed the Paper

The hand that signed the paper felled a city;

Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath,
Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country;
These five kings did a king to death.

The mighty hand leads to a sloping shoulder,

The finger joints are cramped with chalk;
A goose's quill has put an end to murder
That put an end to talk.

The hand that signed the treaty bred a fever,

And famine grew, and locusts came;
Great is the hand that holds dominion over
Man by a scribbled name.

The five kings count the dead but do not soften

The crusted wound nor pat the brow;
A hand rules pity as a hand rules heaven;
Hands have no tears to flow.
 Dylan Thomas

Taken from http://www.poemhunter.com/p/m/poem.asp?poet=6655&poem=31910

Dylan Thomas (Swansea, Wales, 1914-1953) was “famoso por su brillante imaginería verbal y por su
canto a la belleza natural (...). Terminados sus estudios de enseñanza media, marchó a Londres, donde en
1934 publicó su primer libro de poemas, Dieciocho poemas, en el que a pesar de su juventud mostró un
excepcional talento tanto en sus imágenes como en su dicción poética. El libro fue muy elogiado por la
crítica. Los temas de estos poemas, el sexo, la muerte, el pecado, la religión y la redención, parecen
oscuros porque contienen elementos del surrealismo y de su propia fantasía personal, pero la frescura y
vitalidad de su lenguaje sumergen al lector en los poemas revelándole la universalidad de las
experiencias que describen” (www.epdlp.com/escritor.php?id=2356).

The hand that signed the paper is a work where content is much more important than form.
There are many interpretations hidden in the words of this author, as I will analyze later, because the form
of the poem is very simple: it has four stanzas where there are four verses in each one.

In a linguistic analysis of the poem, we can identify the use of certain cataphoric, anaphoric and
homophoric items. For instance, the use of “the” in stanza 1(the hand, the paper, the breath and the globe)
is cataphoric, while the subsequent uses or “the” are defining, so they are anaphoric. Examples are: The
mighty hand or The five kings.
The use of “the” in the dead in line 1 of stanza 4 is homophoric and anaphoric since the phrase the dead
could be said to get an universal application. Also we have in the poem the use of participant relations
where parts of the body and certain elements are made to act as if on their own volition. For instance, in
the title of the work, The hand that signed the paper, the poet presents the hand as if acting independently
of its owner whose brain must have given the signal before the actual signing was done. Also, we have
fingers taxed the breath, A hand that rules pity, a hand that rules heaven, etc.
On the other hand, there is a preponderance of the nominal group in the poem, and most of these nominal
groups are inanimate: The hand that signed the paper, The globe of dead (stanza 1, line 3), a scribbled
name (stanza 3, line 4), etc.
Synonymy is another lexical device used in the poem: did a king to death (stanza 2, line 4) and murder
(stanza 2, line 3) can be said to be identical meaning. Also, paper and treaty can be said to be
synonymous. The use of fingers and hand is an instance of hyponymy. The implication of this is that the
poet uses them as elements of foregrounding to lay emphasis on the actual message of the poem.

The rhyme is unique for the whole poem: ABAB. The vocabulary used by Thomas is not very
complicated, but there are some words difficult to understand even for English students, as goose (line 7),
locusts (line 10) or scribbled (line 12).

As I have said before, this text of Thomas is full of words with double meaning that make this poem an
excellent portrait of what happens when the (hand of a) man has got the power to initiate and to end a war
with a simple sign in an insignificant piece of paper. This is shown in a masterly way in lines 7 and 8: A
goose’s quill has put end to murder/ That put an end to talk.
Thomas does not use the term death, even it would be a more appropriate word for a poem which talks
about war and its consequences, but he uses murder to emphasize the dramatic effect of death, the only
way of not finding death in a natural way. This two lines are, in my opinion, the most brilliant ones in the
whole poem.

In the line 2, Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath, Thomas shows the fingers of the hand as kings, as
powerful figures; we can see this again later, two lines further down. The expression taxed the breath is
very good to explain how difficult it is to survive in a war, because signing that paper means killing a lot
of innocent people.

The second stanza begins with a reference to God, to divine power: The mighty hand leads to a sloping
shoulder: God is Almighty, that hand can be so mighty as God.
In lines 9 and 10 (The hand that signed the treaty bred a fever,/ And famine grew, and locusts came:). It
makes reference to plagues that people who are physically and psychologically injured in a war have to
endure.

Great is the hand that holds dominion over/ Man

by a scribbled name. Here the writer criticizes the
power of bureaucracy. Is it possible that a man, for
having signed a piece of paper, had in his hands
the destiny of millions of men, women and
children?
The last stanza is a return to terms explained before: Thomas comes back to show the fingers of the hand
as individual kings, as powerful men (The five kings), and also comes back to compare the hand of the man
with God’s hand: A hand rules pity as a hand rules heaven.

The Poem
Dylan Thomas’s “The Hand That Signed the Paper” consists of four quatrains that deride
the cruel impersonality and wholesale destructiveness of modern politics and warfare. It
is a universal war protest poem that expresses profound contempt for political leaders as a
whole. They exhibit an absence of true feeling for their fellow human beings in their self-
interested and pitiless handling of international conflicts and disputes. The poem scorns
 these irresponsible and coolly malevolent figures who have arrogantly set themselves up
as the ultimate authorities over...

IDEAS
   
 
This poem was published in 1935, in the middle of a
decade marked by international unrest. But the poet
does not set his poem in his own time. Taking an
imaginary historical story, he uses the stark tale to
say something about the power and ruthlessness of
kings and rulers.

Signatures on treaties are quickly scribbled. The

drawing-up of a treaty may take a little longer. The
result is the same: countries, people, futures are
signed away. The signatories may care very little for
the fate of individual men, women and children and a
very much for political and military power. 'Power,'
said Lord Acton, 'corrupts' - and added, 'absolute
power corrupts absolutely'.

Whenever this remark is repeated, people listening

nod wisely and agree. Amazingly, though, very little
is done with the information. We still allow power to
remain in the hands of rulers. Why? 'Someone has to
lead.' 'We've chosen someone we can trust.' 'We've
always had hereditary rulers, and some have been
worse than others.' 'Our ruler came to power because
the army backed him - we had no choice.' 'Our ruler
stays in power because big business backs him.' 'We
just want to get on with our lives - what happens in
government isn't anything to do with us.'

There are plenty more excuses where those came

from, and they really are excuses, not reasons. 'But
we've got to have some sort of government,
otherwise there'd be chaos' is another.

This poem (and these remarks) aren't intended to

promote anarchy, or even democracy; they aren't
intended to support any particular political system.
But they are asking the reader to think about how
nations (and the world as a whole) are ruled, and how
it might be done differently - and without armies.

There are different ways of interpreting the poet's

telling of his tale. Did the king signing the paper
condemn himself to death, or some other king? Was it
his own city, people and country he signed away, and
 why? Was the 'murder' the killing of many by armies
ordered into battle? Was the 'talk' negotiation or
rumour? Are the king's fingers counting off the dead
in war? - and on which 'side'? If nothing else, this
poem reminds us that the truths of 'history' are never
plain or simple.

However you interpret this narrative, one powerful

man brought disaster to a whole country and its
population. Killing, in whatever way and however
many, was made part of the solution to a problem, as
it often still is. It's a rotten part.

THE FORCE THAT THROUGH THE GREEN FUSE DRIVES THE

FLOWER

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.

The force that drives the water through the rocks

Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.

The hand that whirls the water in the pool

Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman's lime.

The lips of time leech to the fountain head;

Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather's wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.

And I am dumb to tell the lover's tomb

 The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower | Introduction
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Dylan Thomas made a dramatic impact on the literary world when his first collection of
poetry, with the unassuming title 18 Poems, appeared in December of 1934, when he was
only twenty years old. Although he had published a few poems in literary magazines
during the previous year, Thomas was basically an unknown figure. From the beginning,
he was a controversial poet. Not part of the conventional literary establishment,
unconnected with any particular poetic movement, his work was difficult to categorize.
Although Thomas's poems received critical acclaim for the force and vitality of their
language and imagery, he was also criticized for obscurity. Because of this, he was often
identified with the Surrealist movement, where images and language violated the rules of
logic, frequently imitating the landscape of dreams, or even nightmares. On the surface,
Thomas seems to have much in common with Surrealism; however, he vehemently
denied the relationship, insisting that his poetry was carefully planned and controlled.
Thomas fully intended his images to be understood. Unfortunately for the reader, the
intensely personal nature of many of his metaphors makes this difficult.

"The Force That through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower," one of the most popular and
least obscure of the poems in the collection, illustrates both the vivid language and the
complex, powerful, but often confusing imagery. While it is easy to get caught up in the
rhythm and drama of the language, it is far more difficult to unravel meaning. On its most
basic level, however, the poem describes the cycle of life and death, noting that creation
and destruction are part of the same process, both for man and for nature. Each stanza
presents the flow of time moving to its inexorable conclusion.

This is one of my favorite poems of Dylan Thomas, both through its incredible use of language
to aurally project the atmosphere it is trying to create and its wonderful theme. The poem is
about life and death, the process that brings about both, and how these two natural forces are
not actually two, but one.

Much of this feeling of oneness is created by juxtaposing the two together in one image:

"Drives my green age..."

 "Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind..."

"The force that drives the water through the rocks..."

"How of my clay is made the hangman's lime..."

All of these are images of life and death combined into one; green, blowing wind (the breath
of life), clay, and water as symbols for life... age, quicksand, lime (used to accelerate
decomposition of publically hanged men in their graves), and rocks as symbols for death. By
joining them into one coherant image, the merging of the two becomes more apparent.

Dylan Thomas also brings about this unity through the one constant in the poem, the driving
force. All else is a swirl of conflicting images and confusion, what anchors the poem is the one
force that serves to fuel it all. This force cannot create both life and death unless it is both life
and death, rolled into one package.

All that makes the difference is time. Everything changes, the one force brings the joy of life
and the despair of death in cycles. They are not opposing gods, waging an eternal battle for
the state of the world. They are one, they feed each other. Death becomes life becomes death
becomes life.

And I am dumb to tell a weather's wind

How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.

As in many of the Dylan Thomas poems, the central thought here is simple. It consists of
the confrontation in each verse of the same ideas. One is the idea of green fuse, the power
in nature that drives everything forward; we feel this, we share its activity, and its makes
us feel stronger and bolder with each experience, and life and time to be on our side.

The second idea in each verse is that we are, however, being destroyed by this very same
power. We are getting older, life and time are killing us a little with each experience.

I suggest reading the first verse again; it shows the contrast of the two meaning clearly —
the predicament of all living and growing things..

The poem “The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower,” by Dylan
Thomas, has to be read attentively at least twice to begin to grasp its meaning. In the poem
Thomas handles all of the literary elements with dexterity, which is why there are so many
possible interpretations. But the general theme of the cycle of life is evident through his skillful
use of imagery, symbolism, and connotation.

In the first line of the first stanza Thomas introduces “The Force,” the omnipotent element that is
ever-present in the poem.
The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever. (1-5)

The “green fuse” represents the stem of the flower, but through connotation “fuse” is thought of as
something explosive, contrary to a gentle flower. The word “green” implies youth, exuberance,
and growth as he describes his age. In the second and third lines the force that produced life in
the flower and himself is described as the same force that destroys life. The fourth line shatters
the beautiful image of a rose, a symbol of healthiness and vigor, when it is described as crooked,
inviting negative connotations. Just as the rose is feeble, he is also weakened and the seasons of
his life change from springtime liveliness to “wintry fever.” The image of a frail, hunched over old
man comes to mind.

The second stanza resembles the first stanza in set-up and message.

The force that drives the water through the rocks

Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks. (6-10)

Once again “the force” is brought up. The “force” here extends the flow of the stream as it drives it
along, similar to the first stanza in which the force extended the growth of the flower. “Red blood”
is homogenous to “green age” from the first stanza – they both represent life and vivacity. In lines
seven and eight “the force” becomes destructive again as in the first stanza. The force that
pushed life along becomes the very force that takes away life as it “dries” the stream and turns
the speaker’s blood to “wax,” which represents the speaker’s stiff corpse after embalming. As in
the first stanza he is unable to communicate his feelings. An attempt to explain the situation to his
body would be futile, since it is already lifeless.

In the third stanza the force is replaced by “the hand,” and like the “force” in the previous two
stanzas it has the power to control and alter nature.

The hand that whirls the water in the pool

Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman’s lime.

The “hand agitates the normally calm waters of the pool and the generally motionless quicksand,
and it is so powerful that it also controls the wind. The third line of this stanza is a double
entendre. The speaker can be referring to a ship where the “shroud” is one of the ropes that
support a ship’s mast; in this case the “hand’s” power is demonstrated as it controls the ship’s
course. Another interpretation of the third line is similar to the third lines in the previous stanzas in
which he states his demise; in this case the “shroud” would be the sheet used to wrap a dead
body for burial. In the fourth and fifth lines the speaker find it senseless to communicate his
feelings with the “hanging man” since they both share the same fate. The speaker’s body, his
“clay,” will be in the hangman’s pit, which is doused in “lime” to nullify the smell of rotting corpses.

While the first three stanzas illustrated the abilities of “the force,” the fourth stanza identifies the
force as being “time.”
The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather’s wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.

The denotation of “fountainhead” is an original source, therefore, where life begins, time leeches
the fountain head just as age exhausts life. The line can also interpret as the “lips of time”
symbolizing the genitals of a female and the “fountain head” as the phallus of a man. The latter
interpretation ties in well with the rest of the poem because of its significance in the cycle of life;
the speaker is playing his role in reproduction. The next line also leads on to sexual connotations
but leans more towards the reoccurring theme of death where “fallen blood” represents a dead
person. The speaker brings another life into being through reproduction in line one and in lines
two and three he explains that the burden on society will be offset by his death, “fallen blood.”
Time is referred to as “her” and the burden on society is represented by “sores.” He is incapable
of explaining to the wind how time works because the wind already knows the nature of time. The
“weather’s wind” has been to the heavens and the stars and has seen all possible weathers.