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Poet: Dylan Thomas
Poem: And Death Shall Have No Dominion
Volume: 25 Poems
Year: Published/Written in 1936
Comment 51 of 51, added on May 27th, 2009 at 10:50 AM.
To Whom It May Concern :
Once and for all - " dead mean naked " should read " dead men naked" If anyone has any doubts about this listen to any D.T. video where the man recites the same.
M.J. Finner from Canada
Comment 50 of 51, added on May 12th, 2009 at 12:23 PM.
In response to some of the other comments, where the poem says "heads of the characters hammer through daisies", isn't he referring to the letters of the person's name on the gravestone forcing themselves into the light? It doesn't refer to the heads of the dead people. If it did, then the use of the word "characters" is inapropriate, we use this word for fictional people, not each other.
Andrew from United Kingdom
Comment 49 of 51, added on February 13th, 2009 at 3:56 PM.
It's ironic, friends... but positive. He's quoting Romans 6:9 loosely in the first line, then deliberately undermining it throughout. Thomas was an agnostic; more of a 'spiritual materialist' -- believing, like Blake, in a kind of Eternal energy or divine oneness -- than an atheist. The original biblical line referred to Christ's resurrection, which Thomas slightly mocks with lines referring to the torture chambers of the Catholic Inquisition and the almost comical image of heads hammering up through daisies when the supposed Revelation comes. His images are meant to show the absolute finality of death, yet, in their horror, to set the tone for the underlying peaceful notion that the eternal oneness our spirits rejoin at the end of their journey is far more vital (in its literal sense) than earthly life. This transcendental/pantheistic approach is consistent with his trademark neo-romantic leanings and is perhaps hinted at by deliberately jumbling Shelly's 'west wind' with the fairytale 'man in the moon' early on. There is a foreboding sense in that line that he will be mocking all myths that attempt to explain metaphysics in trite, easily grasped stories and images, putting them on the same level as the fairytales (man in moon) we tell children.
Scott Withers from Canada
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To Whom It May Concern :
Once and for all - " dead mean naked " should read " dead men naked" If anyone has any doubts about this listen to any D.T. video where the man recites the same.
M.J. Finner from Canada