Thomas, Dylan << DIHL uhn >> (1914-1953), was a Welsh poet who wrote some of the most stirring, passionate, and eloquent verse in modern literature. From the publication of his first book, Eighteen Poems (1934), critics recognized him as a brilliant and original poet. The volume bewildered and fascinated readers with its extraordinary verbal and musical energy and with its exploration of emotional extremes. These extremes, alternately ecstatic and morbid, revealed Thomas’s obsessions with love, death, religion, and the sound of words. Among his best-known poems are “Fern Hill” (1946) and “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” (1952).
Thomas’s love of life and exuberant sense of humor are revealed in his prose fiction and drama as well as in his verse. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog (1940) is a collection of stories about Thomas’s youth in Wales. A group of his symbolic stories was published as Adventures in the Skin Trade in 1955, after his death. The Collected Stories of Dylan Thomas was published in 1984. Just before his death, Thomas completed a radio play, Under Milk Wood. In this play, Thomas describes with tender humor a day in the life of eccentric residents of a Welsh village. A Child’s Christmas in Wales, originally published in Harper’s Bazaar magazine in 1950 and later as a book, warmly describes a child’s experiences during Christmastime in a Welsh village.
Dylan Marlais Thomas was born on Oct. 27, 1914, in Swansea. He gained great popularity through public readings of his works in the United Kingdom and the United States. On Nov. 9, 1953, Thomas died of pneumonia aggravated by acute alcoholism while he was on a tour of the United States.
