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THIS STORY I WRITE WAS ONCE A POEM:
THEMES IN MOTION IN DYLAN THOMAS’ PROSE AND POETRY
ESTA HISTÓRIA QUE ESCREVO JÁ FOI UM POEMA:
TEMAS EM MOVIMENTO NA PROSA E POESIA DE DYLAN THOMAS
ABSTRACT
Jorge Luiz Adeodato Junior
[email protected]
Universidade Estadual Vale do
Acaraú - UVA
The following article aims to analyze how Dylan Thomas, one of the
greatest modern poets in the English language and Wales’ most
important author, transcribes some of his poetic themes and motifs
into prose. Focusing on the story A visit to Grandpa’s and the poems
That sanity be kept and Our eunuch dreams, the intention is to
demonstrate how literary genres dialogue thematically in the literary
universe of a particular author.
Keywords: Modern British literature. Literary genres. Literary criticism
and analysis.
RESUMO
O presente artigo visa analisar como Dylan Thomas, um dos maiores
poetas modernos em língua inglesa e mais importante autor do País de
Gales, transpõe alguns de seus temas e motes poéticos para a prosa.
Com foco no conto “A visit to Grandpa’s” e nos poemas “That sanity be
kept” e “Our eunuch dreams”, a intenção é demonstrar como gêneros
distintos dialogam tematicamente dentro do universo literário de um
autor.
Palavras-chave: Literatura inglesa moderna. Gêneros literários. Crítica
e análise literária.
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INTRODUCTION: CHILD’S PLAY
The well-known Brazilian writer Monteiro Lobato has a popular sentence that surely sticks to a
reader’s mind – especially if you read that as a kid, the best time to get to know Lobato’s allegorical
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narratives of fantastic imagery: “A country is shaped by its men and books” . Of course, since Lobato
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himself was the chief editor and manager of his own publishing house , that certainly goes without
saying. Marketing entrepreneurship aside, he is until this day acknowledged in Brazil as the epitome of
the man of arts and letters.
One should surely not attempt to refute such assertive, for it was said by one of the most
important authors from that country. But allow me, if I may, not only to paraphrase, but to deviate the
meaning and wit of that particular sentence in order to apply it to a different context – a more Literary
one, rather than Political or Business-like: “Literature is shaped by a man and his themes”.
That is certainly the feeling one gets by reading Dylan’s short stories. Accustomed to admire his
poetry, one of the joys a reader may have from his efforts in that genre is to check how he adapted his
particular universe from verses to sentences.
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Free translation from Portuguese of Lobato’s popular sentence “Um país se faz com homens e livros”
Lobato, according to Martins (1998) was one of the founders of Companhia Editora Nacional and
several others publishing houses.
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ADEODATO JR, J. L.
th
Considered one of the great poets of the English language from the 20 century, some of his
themes and motifs are now often cited as dylanesque: the surreal imagery; the praising of childhood
naiveté and its imaginative powers in contrast to the pragmatism of adult life, and death as the
dissociation of an idealistic childhood. Not to mention the dream-like word assembling and musical
tone, a distinct quality in his poetry. Alan Peter Fear noted that this particular feature in Thomas’
poetical work has its roots in his Welsh origins. Although the poet makes use of the English language
throughout his work, it is all very steeped in the Welsh tradition: “as a popular saying goes, ‘To be born
Welsh is to be born privileged, not with a silver spoon in your mouth, but with music in your heart and
poetry in your soul’” (FEAR, 2012, p. 30). There is no doubt that Thomas was born with that gift from
Wales.
In order to illustrate how these themes appear in Thomas’ both poetry and prose, this article
aims to focus on the story A visit to Grandpa’s and put some of its aspects in perspective with two of his
poems: That sanity be kept and Our eunuch dreams.
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ANALYSIS: CHILDHOOD BONDS
Thomas’ writing is understood to be extremely personal and self-referential, and the volume
title says it all. The “artist” is no other than Thomas pledging allegiance to his peers – in this case, with
James Joyce and his Portrait of the artist as a young man. The interesting fact is that the dog is also him,
playing with the image his public persona had acquired by the time (the drunken romantic, the
bohemian ladies’ man). By doing such, Dylan claims that he is at the same time artistic creation and art
craftsman; one who voluntarily keeps one foot in fiction and the other in reality. So, the volume
captures images and recollections from his own life, scenes that were important to the constitution of
his self as an author and as a man.
The text which we focus on takes place during a visit that the main character paid to his
grandpa’s house. The way Thomas describes Grandpa, with childlike tone and associations, lead us to
envision this character as an eccentric person. That is a position shared among people from the small
town where the story is set – everybody seems to know about Grandpa’s strange habits. It seems that
the more you’ve been through, the more an eccentric tone you apply to life. The author seems to be
leveling both characters: the poet/kid who feels much and the old man who has seen much are very
much alike, in a sense of perception. It is as if they somehow speak the same language.
Thomas goes on, describing the atmosphere in a gentle, ethereal style: “In the middle of the
night I woke from a dream full of whips and lariats as long as serpents, and runaway coaches and
mountain passes, and wide, windy gallops over cactus fields, and I heard the old man in the next room
crying ‘Gee-up!’ and ‘Whoa!’” (THOMAS, 2001, p. 19).
Both young boy and him had to deal with nightmares that night; each in their own way. For a
moment, they had to deal with the same problems.
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THIS STORY I WRITE WAS ONCE A POEM
“‘Do you ever have nightmares, boy?’
I said: ‘No’
‘Oh, yes, you do’, he said
I said I was woken by a voice that was shouting to horses.
‘What did I tell you?’ he said. (…) ‘Who ever heard of horses
in a bedroom?’
(THOMAS, 2001, p. 20)
Dreams are not to make sense, period. On the other hand, they seem to be taken very
seriously by the old man, as if he would rather not have them. Better still, he would rather not know
what they mean, because it is simply better not to understand them. It is better to leave them be,
because after dreams take place, real life is to follow. Dreams are like a device to connect: connect the
old and the young, the real and the insubstantial, the conscious and the unconscious, the slumber and
the awareness.
And from one point to another, once you cross the bridge, you are in a totally different world.
“…Later in the morning he took me for a walk, through Johnstown village and into the fields on the
Llanstephan road. (THOMAS, 2001, p. 20).
That particular moment when you make the transition from your inner life to the pragmatism
of actually living is a topic from one of Thomas’ most beautiful poem, “That sanity be kept”.
Sit at open windows in my shirt,
And let the traffic pass, the signals shine,
The engines run, the brass bands keep in tune
For sanity must be preserved.
(THOMAS, 2000, p. 15)
That same life you must keep your chest opened to, someday is bound to reach an end.
Throughout the text, Grandpa is well aware of that, as if he knew that all things must pass. He even
passes his heritage on, his last name: “‘There’s a nice morning, Mr. Thomas’ (…) ‘There, do you hear
what he called you? Mister!’” (THOMAS, 2001, p. 20). A kid does not understand much about ceasing to
exist (he would have to become a poet or an elder to know – or see, or feel – a little more about that),
and since we read the story from a child’s point of view, it all seems ordinary, even funny. As if it was
absolutely conventional: my Grandpa is a strange man, and that is that.
Only by the end of the story, when Grandpa tries to cross the bridge wearing his best suit, is
that the child and poet-to-be starts to grasp a lesson on finitude and the transformation that the aging
process inflicts in one, physically and psychologically; a lesson on changing and the will to live, to
imagine, to create. That same type of knowledge is reflected in several of Thomas’ poems, including Our
eunuch dreams:
This is the world: the lying likeness of
Our strips of stuff that tatter as we move
(…)
The dream that kicks the buried from their sack
(…)
This is the world. Have faith.
(THOMAS, 2000, p. 28)
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ADEODATO JR, J. L.
In the poem, dreaming (an unconscious way to internalize the world around us) represents a
key element to existence that can make one feel alive again. Curiously, that kind of apprehension only
comes by “turning oneself off” from life.
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REACHING A CHILDLIKE COMPREHENSION
The works of Dylan Thomas can be read as an invitation to build and cross bridges between the
realms of the real and the imaginary. The literary language enables the artist to create rhythm, images
and metaphors, producing a whole new level of communication. And, just like a kid learning through
language how to represent everything around, Thomas uses literature as an element of connection to
the world – or, dare I say, worlds. Thus, literature, to him, represents a device able to gather worlds and
languages together.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
FEAR, A. P. A walk through Llareggub: a reading of Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood. 2012. 113p.
Dissertação (Mestrado - Programa de Pós-graduação em Letras). Instituto de Letras, Universidade
Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, 2012.
MARTINS, W. A palavra escrita: história do livro, da imprensa e da biblioteca. 3. ed. São Paulo, Ática,
1998.
THOMAS, D. Portrait of the artist as a young dog. London, Phoenix Books, 2001.
__________. Selected Poems. London, Penguin Books, 2000.
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