Wednesday, October 29, 2008

The Dylans

posted by Brit

Dylan Thomas pops up again, (as he is wont to do with surprising frequency). Thomas is meant to be a Marmite poet. Except that like so many things you're supposed to either love or hate, I can't make up my mind.

Nige skewers his style with a brilliant (and Thomas-esque) description of: windy bardic utterance, relentlessly sexed up with thick impasti of alliteration and assonance, stretched wildly out of shape by its eye-rolling, exalted urgency.

Undeniable really. But there is a real linguistic genius there, too - of the type shared by the other Dylan during his golden period. There's no perfected framing or craftsmanship - instead, the Dylans mostly sound like idiot savants channelling raw, purple material straight from some crazed Muse, with no ability to edit or control. The consequence is that they walk a terribly narrow line between brilliance and drivel. This provides both the appeal and the derision.

That said, here's a Dylan Thomas poem that falls the right side of the line. Supporting the genius theory, he published it when he was 22.

7 comments:

  1. The stage version of Under Milk Wood needed a herculean effort to stay awake, about 25 minutes in mine totally failed. From memory I think it was Hugh Griffith that did it, or the Welsh accent.

    Yup, it was the accent.

    The other Dylan was sublime, should hang up his guitar now.

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  2. Dylan Jones, editor of GQ is the greatest genius of them all. Who can forget the noble heights of his magnum opus 'ipod therefore I am?'

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  3. You might say that the best thing about Dylan Thomas was Richard Burton.

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  4. Ah, Mr Taylor, two bottles of vodka a day doth chase the blues away.
    Liz set the poor bloke on the road to Stolly.

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  5. Burton could have read the back of a Cornflakes box and it would have sounded great.

    You're doing a good job, Brit. I'm enjoying the posts.

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  6. Thanks Neil. Burton also made Jeff Wayne's crazy War of the Worlds musical thing worthwhile.

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  7. Have you ever heard a recording of Dylan Thomas declaiming poetry (either his own or someone else's)? Totally over the top - try the CD 'Classic Poems' if you think you can bear it.

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