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Comment 44 of 44, added on January 22nd, 2008 at 11:32 PM.
I believe Thomas wrote this at a time he had lost his faith. He desperately wanted to believe in the hope of an afterlife, as shown in the first verse. However, as we move into the last stanza, the poem shows a materialistic view that, in the end, after the universe runs down, even death will no longer hold sway. It's a sad ending without hope.
Vernon from United States
Comment 43 of 44, added on July 17th, 2006 at 5:52 PM.
I would dearly love to believe that Thomas was correct, that death has no dominion, that it is a transitional event and not a terminal place.
But whilst I'd love to believe him, I don't.
Yet in spite of my disbelief the poem helps.
I have no explanation for this contradiction.
Martin D Bates from United Kingdom
Comment 42 of 44, added on July 7th, 2006 at 5:33 PM.
Thank you for this wonderful website!
Though english is not my mother tongue, I want to add some ideas to all your interesting oppinions:
Doesn't Dylan Thomas infact paint a picture of death's dominion?
Doesn't he fall from stanza to stanza deeper into this abyss of death?
Or should I say: Doesn't he discribe death more vividly in every stanza until death is like life? Or better: Until death IS life?
Isn't the last picture whith the breaking heads in the sun the strongest picture of death and life at the same time?
Susanne from Germany
Comment 41 of 44, added on May 31st, 2006 at 11:09 AM.
Contrary of what has been said, this poem was written around the year 1934 as it was published in Dylan's first volume of poetry "18 poems" It was pre- II world war, and Dylan Thomas was well known to differ from the typical poets of his era; he was a romantic writer.
It is also known he was an alcoholic, and as we know many poets and writers use alcohol to be creative. What I´ve come to think of this poem is that through the state of being drunk Dylan was able to open up his inner most thoughts and meanings to himself, and wrote it down for people to know his essence and beliefs although they are too much abstract and personal for anyone to know it's real meaning.
Santiago from Spain
Comment 40 of 44, added on May 30th, 2006 at 1:13 AM.
This poem's subject is transcendence, any way you slice it. The yearning for transcendence is older than Christianity, older than Judaism, older than all religions ever constructed. Thomas erects obstacles to this transcendence and deals with them in turn; less successfully, the impression is given, as the poem progresses. It's rich, complex and mysterious; just as its subject deserves. We live with this as an innate characteristic of our human condition, and regularly fail to articulate it. Thomas at least tries.
Andrew from United Kingdom
Comment 39 of 44, added on April 21st, 2006 at 7:31 PM.
I'm no critical expert, but i somehow find myself understanding what this poem says (it might be right, it might be wrong: watevr). I think people are focussing way too much on a line and ignoring the rest or this poem.I understand that love is a very common theme in poems, but people are resorting to it too quickly. "though lovers be lost love shall not" does not define the entire poem. The first stanza, i automatically related with the final couplet of "death be not proud" by John Donne. It speaks of how dieing is juat an instant of bad followed by an eternity of good (afterlife). Thomas's insistance on using "and" i found quite intriguing. After having thought about it, i finally decided that it meant that there are so many reasons why death shall have no dominion, that he could not possibly name them all and just took some to put in this poem. The "and" implies that there is more. The second stanza, i found quite the same, as he is describing ways to die, "but they shant crack" or "they won't matter" because death shall have no dominion.
The third stanza, i found most intriguing, and this i must put in a new paragraph to emphasize it importance. I found a complete chang in mood in which at first, he is completely 100% sure that death shall have no dominion, but then he sways and says that all this good of life is gone: seagulls+seashores=ocean=peace=happiness, and since death ends the oceans, it symbolically ends happiness, so he is admitting that death in fact DOES have dominion. Towards the end, however, he tries to convince himself that death has no dominion so that he can live in peace.
Given all of this, at the end i was finally able to conclude one very important thing: the audience. We are not Thomas's audience, he is his own audience. In many of his poems, you can see that he has a problem with death and all of its uncertainties, which actually becomes a sort of obsession. In this poem, he is not trying to convince us that death shall have no dominion. He is actually trying to convince himself that death shall have no dominion so that he can live in peace and know that death will not controll him and that he WILL have an afterlife.
Prez from United States
Comment 38 of 44, added on April 15th, 2006 at 4:10 AM.
THE POEM APPEALS TO THE HEART OF THE READER AND DEMANDS A COMPARISON WITH JOHN DONNE'S "DEATH BE NOT PROUD".
-NAKUL KUNDRA,B.A.
DOABA COLLEGE,JALANDHAR CITY, PUNJAB (INDIA)
NAKUL KUNDRA from India
Comment 37 of 44, added on March 20th, 2006 at 1:57 PM.
If you don't want people to tell you what a poem means or what they think it means, then don't come onto a web forum entirely set up for just that purpose. What's the point of discussing ANYTHING if we just take it at face value? Thomas didn't write this poem with face value in mind, so should we just dismiss some of the possibly greater meanings? Your logic is consistent with reading the novel Animal Farm and saying, "well...what an interesting commentary about life on a farm. I wish I had ME one uh dem pigs." There is a happy medium between face value interpretations and overly effusive tangents to sound intelligent. I suggest you look for the balance.
I think what's brilliant about this poem is that it's ambiguous in many ways, and not limited to one DEFINITE opinion. And yes, I am saying some poems really have a limited number of main themes. Donne's sonnet 10 is very similar to this one--it asserts the continuity of life over the seeming permanence of death. I love this poem regardless of what others think, though I am still interested to hear what they say because I respect the opinions of others more than or as much as my own.
Mr. P from United States
Comment 36 of 44, added on March 16th, 2006 at 9:32 AM.
ok im doing this poem for my english courswork and find it very confuseing, does anyone have ant links or websites with a good analasys?
Heli from United Kingdom
Comment 35 of 44, added on March 2nd, 2006 at 4:06 AM.
I think this poem is mocking religion, 'unicorn evils' a unicorn is a self thought myth, so is he mocking those who believe? Also, Thomas being a great believe of pantheism being a 'creator and creature of his own world', isn't he rejecting the idea of religion? The idealistic heaven 'they shall have stars at elbow and foot' also seems to be mocking this perfect idea of the after-life. I think Thomas believes love endures death and religion, and that it makes us immortal.
jo from United Kingdom
This poem has been commented on more than 10 times. Click below to see the other comments.
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I believe Thomas wrote this at a time he had lost his faith. He desperately wanted to believe in the hope of an afterlife, as shown in the first verse. However, as we move into the last stanza, the poem shows a materialistic view that, in the end, after the universe runs down, even death will no longer hold sway. It's a sad ending without hope.
Vernon from United States