Profile: Dylan Thomas, Early Life
Dylan Marlais Thomas 1914 - 1953, Wales' Greatest Poet
Dylan Thomas was a British poet who combined romanticism and modernism in a powerful and distinctive style.
Thomas' work combined romanticism and modernism in a powerful and distinctive style. This made him one of the most influential British writers of the 20th century and a national hero in his native Wales. His most famous works are the radio play Under Milk Wood (1953) and the poem Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night (1951), written upon the death of his father.
Dylan Thomas was born on 27th October 1914 at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive in Swansea, a small industrial city on the south coast of Wales. His sister Nancy, with whom he claimed to have nothing in common, was eight years his senior, an in effect both children grew up without siblings of their own age to play with and were, in a sense, two only children within the same family.
Thomas' Parents, Florence And DJ, And Their Impact On His Work
Although Thomas’ father David John, always known as D.J, had been a scholarship boy and Florence a farmer’s daughter the family were upwardly mobile, living in the respectable Uplands area of Swansea. They employed a maid and paid for elocution lessons and a private education for their children.
Although he stayed mainly within the suburbs of Swansea throughout his childhood, Thomas’ summers were often spent with his aunt Anne (Florence’s sister) and her family at their dairy farm in Carmarthenshire. These holidays later inspired the poem Fern Hill (1948) and the short story The Peaches (1940).
D.J.’s influence had an enormous impact on Thomas as an artist. D.J. was a senior English master at Swansea grammar school where Thomas was a pupil, but although he was a great, some said brilliant teacher, he had always wanted to go to university and be a writer. Though undemonstrative and acid-tongued, D.J. devoted enormous time and energy to immersing his son in the study of the classics; from a young age Dylan read Shakespeare, Dickins, Jane Austen, Hardy and Trollope.
In contrast, Thomas’ mother Florence was a warm, outgoing woman. Born Florence Williams, she was from a large, close-knit family; her six brothers and sisters played an important part in Thomas’ childhood and many of his short stories and poems make reference to uncles and aunts at large, cheery family gatherings.
Thomas was cosseted by his mother, who believed him to be a sickly child; a belief which Thomas played on and used to his advantage. Physically tiny, Thomas was only 5ft 2ins tall (but claimed to be 5ft 6ins) and as a young man was very slim. Even as an adult he was very elfin and childlike in appearance, which added to his charm, although in later life his drinking and smoking took its toll on his appearance.
Thomas Was A Prolific Writer From An Early Age
Thomas began writing at an early age and produced his first recorded poem, The Song of the Mischievous Dog at the age of eleven. He later claimed that his teenage years were the most prolific of his career, producing hundreds of poems a year, many of which were later reworked for inclusion in later collections.
At 15 a couplet from one of his poems was quoted in the London magazine Everyman. A year later Thomas sent some of his work to the poet Robert Graves who described them as ‘irreproachable’.
At Swansea Grammar School, Dylan shone in only one subject – English Literature. On leaving school at sixteen he worked briefly as a reporter on a local paper before being dismissed for spending too much of his working day in the pub. He continued to write for the paper as a freelance journalist before moving to London in 1934, aged twenty.
His first book of poems, 18 Poems, was published later that year. The collection was praised by a number of established poets, including Edith Sitwell.
However, Thomas’ reputation as a writer was accompanied and often overshadowed by his reputation as a drinker and while he could be charming he could also be rude and annoying.
In April 1936 Thomas moved to Cornwall where he met his future wife, Caitlan Macnamara.
