Guiding Questions for Text Analysis.

Dylan Thomas’ “A Refusal to Mourn the

Death, by Fire, of a Child in London”

Comentario de textos literarios en lengua inglesa

Grado en Estudios Ingleses: Lengua, Literatura y Cultura
Equipo Docente: Isabel Castelao, Dídac Llorens
 I) CONTEXT
• Published 1945. World War II (1939-45). The
Blitz (1940-1). Inspiration.
• The poem’s title: length, intention, relation
with content.
• Thomas, a Welsh poet. Thomas and London.
• The literary context of Modernism: formal
experimentation, experience of the two great
wars.
 II) FORM/CONTENT (genre)
• The poem’s genre. Poetry > Lyrical poetry >
Elegy.
• ELEGY.- an elaborately lyric formal poem lamenting the
death of a friend or public figure, or reflecting seriously
on a solemn subject. (Chris Baldick, The Oxford
Dictionary of Literary Terms, Oxford: OUP, 2008, p. 104)
• LYRIC POETRY.- the most extensive category of verse,
by comparison to narrative and dramatic poetry. [...T]he
most usual emotions presented are those of love and
grief. (Chris Baldick, The Oxford Dictionary of Literary
Terms, Oxford: OUP, 2008, p. 192)
 II) FORM/CONTENT (lyrical speaker)
• Poet ≠ lyrical speaker.

• LYRICAL SPEAKER / POETIC SPEAKER / VOICE / PERSONA.- the

person who “speaks” in a poem, as opposed to the
poet him-/herself.

• The speaker’s ideology.

 II) FORM/CONTENT (imagery/poetic
devices/figures of speech)
• IMAGERY.- the use of language to represent objects, actions,
feelings, thoughts, ideas, states of mind and any sensory or
extra-sensory experience.

• Visual images: bird, beast, flower. The binary

opposition light-darkness.

• Metaphor as a combination of images.

• METAPHOR.- the identification of images with other images or

with concepts, based on a relationship of similarity.
Never until the mankind making
Bird beast and flower
Fathering and all humbling darkness
Tells with silence the last light breaking
And the still hour
Is come of the sea tumbling in harness
And I must enter again the round
Zion of the water bead
And the synagogue of the ear of corn
Shall I let pray the shadow of a sound
Or sow my salt seed
In the least valley of sackcloth to mourn
II) FORM/CONTENT (versification)
• Stanza and line length.
• Rhyme (abcabc).
• Number and distribution of stresses.
• ALLITERATION.- the repetition of the same
soundsusually initial consonants of words or of
stressed syllablesin any sequence of neighbouring
words. (Chris Baldick, The Oxford Dictionary of Literary
Terms, Oxford: OUP, 2008)
• Function. Examples: “mankind making, “bird
beast”, “last light”, “sow my salt seed”.
 II) FORM/CONTENT (syntax)
• A single sentence.

• ENJAMBMENT.- the practice of continuing a phrase or

sentence beyond a verse line or stanza.

• Examples: “the round │ Zion”, “to mourn │ the

majesty and burning of the child’s death”.
• Gerunds and the recurrence of the
conjunction “and”.
 II) FORM/CONTENT (themes,
interrelation form-content)
• Themes formulated in abstract terms.
Themes and the speaker’s ambivalence.
• Possible themes: “the anticipation of
apocalypse”, “the deferral of an
intention”.
• The poem’s rhythm and syntax as related
to the content.
 II) THEORY AND CRITICISM
• Post-structuralism does not take into account
the author’s supposed intentions.
• Post-structuralism: looks for disunity, rejects
fixed meanings.
• Looks for contradictions and paradoxes
(Barry’s “verbal stage”).
• PARADOX.-an apparently self-contradictory (even absurd)
statement which, on closer inspection, is found to contain a
truth reconciling the conflicting opposites. (J. A. Cuddon, The
Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory,
London: Penguin, 1999)
 II) THEORY AND CRITICISM
• “Never” and “until”, “the still hour [...] tumbling”,
the “majesty and burning”, “tell with silence”.
• Look for binary oppositions (Barry’s “verbal
stage”).
• BINARY OPPOSITION.-the principle of contrast between two
mutually exclusive terms; each term is dependent on the
other to constitute itself.
• Consider whether binary oppositions are
neutralised or reversed. In the poem, light-
darkness.
 II) THEORY AND CRITICISM
• Look for discontinuities in the text
(Barry’s “textual stage”). Personal vs.
Impersonal, an important omission.
• Considering Barry’s “linguistic stage”
would imply looking at the whole poem.
• Please refer to Barry’s post-structuralist
analysis of the poem in Beginning
Theory.