ipl-logo

Blake's Influence On Dylan Thomas

1296 Words6 Pages

Many of William Blake’s most popular works, including Song of Innocence and of Experience and The Book of Urizen, have had a significant influence on 1930s writer Dylan Thomas. The thesis that fulfilled Hugh Grant’s Masters of Arts in English titled “The Influence of William Blake on the Poetry and Prose of Dylan Thomas” explains that Thomas came from a lower class family, was self-educated, and his work was not very popular when he was alive, similarly to Blake (13). The thesis discusses Thomas’s reading habits and makes the observation that on Christmas one of the pieces of literature he received was Blake’s complete works; this may have laid a foundation for Thomas’s interest in Blake, forming many of his beliefs and attitudes (Grant 1, …show more content…

In Grant 13). It was also discovered that the twelfth poem, titled The Shepherd to His Lass, contained early imitations of pastoral lyrics, which can be reasonably attributed to Blake’s influence, given Thomas’s great interest in Blake (13-14 Grant). Dylan Thomas’s concept of the Divine Image can be given credit to Blake’s influence from Vala while much of the imagery used in Thomas’s In the Beginning is very Blakean and can be traced to similarities in The Book of Urizen. The use of imagery that incorporates blood and anatomy is consistent with both poets while they tend to see the world in human form. For example, they both view the creation of the world as the creation of the human body and view the world in its “fallen form” in terms of a “giant sleeping body” (Grant 17). In Thomas’s short story “The Visitor,” about a dying man being taken care of by a woman and visited by a peculiar character, there is a direct quotation taken from Blake’s The Book of …show more content…

The article “Zeopod 10: His Dark Materials– Blake and Pullman” written by Jason Whittaker, an author of several books on the subject of Blake, concludes that Pullman 's interest in Blake started long before his writings reflected his work and was even the President of the Blake Society in 2004 (2). It is also mentioned that he has extensively written about the Romantic poet (Whitaker 2). Pullman’s trilogy composed of Northern Lights, known as The Golden Compass in the United States, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass was published between 1995 and 2000. His critically acclaimed The Amber Spyglass was awarded the Whitbread Book of the Year prize in 2002 while The Golden Compass was made into a movie in 2007 (Whittaker 1). The most evidence of Blake’s influence is shown in the His Dark Materials trilogy. In the acknowledgements of Pullman’s trilogy, he states that even though he has stolen ideas from almost all the books he has read that, “three debts are to be acknowledged above all others: Heinrich von Kleist’s On the Marionette Theatre, John Milton’s Paradise Lost, and “the works of William Blake”” (qt. in Whittaker 2). Blake 's poetry is also frequently used in the chapter headings of The Amber Spyglass; in the opening chapter of the novel Pullman uses the first four lines of Blake’s Little Girl Lost (Whittaker 2, 8). Pullman also draws inspiration

Show More
Related
572 Words | 3 Pages

Edgar Allan Poe is known for writing some great stories and poems. William Blake has also written some great poems. In this essay, Edgar wrote The Cask of Amontillado while William wrote A Poison Tree. Now between this story and this poem, there are a lot of things that they have in common. Some of these similarities include similarities about characters, character traits and so much more.

Read More
730 Words | 3 Pages

The author’s mother appreciation of poetry and music influences Moss’s aspirations of becoming a writer. The drunken father of the

Read More
1240 Words | 5 Pages

As a movement preoccupied with self-expression, the Romantics held an inherent fascination with individualism and the faculty of imagination, perceiving both to be of the utmost importance and as such desired it to be conveyed in their art and literature. Such innovative ideals was the product of exceptional changes in society, as oppressive institutions and practices were contested, and art became a product of an individual’s emotional state and their imaginative capability. George Byron’s poem “Prometheus”, conveys these aspects, through its elevation of ordinary people and in exemplifying the Romantic attitude that art should always originate from the imagination. Similarly, Edgar Allan Poe’s short story is fascinated with these concepts, though it showcases their darker depths, as it depicts the emotional extremities of an individual and the ability for the imagination to become consuming. Hence, Byron and Poe explores notions of the self and the imagination in their respective texts due to the Romantic fixation of each of these ideals.

Read More
911 Words | 4 Pages

In the age of Romanticism, using nature to express ones feelings was one thing that poets loved to do. Focusing on the “London” by William Blake and “Mutability” by P.B. Shelley, one will see the comparison of how both authors used nature and emotion to depict the situations and experiences that they saw during this time. But meanwhile, the emotion and comparison to nature is not always positive, neither is it always negative and in these two poems one can see the differences. Romanticism was a period of time in the 18th century where literary movements was such an ideal trend in Europe. For the most part romanticism was about individualism and human emotions and not so much about power of the hierarchy over the population.

Read More
1192 Words | 5 Pages

With their similarities in writing styles, we see the struggle that the human mind goes through when dealing with dark obsession, an important aspect of the human condition. There are also some differences, for instance, there is death in both but they are a bit different, and one of the narrators has more control of their situation than the other. Not everything is as it appears, for example in Poe’s “Tell-Tale Heart.”

Read More
1496 Words | 6 Pages

Cassia’s Grandfather gave her a compact that was her Great-Grandmother’s for her birthday. On his 80th birthday, he showed Cassia a secret compartment that contained Dylan Thomas’ Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night poem, which is not one of the 100 approved poems, any other poem found in someone’s possession would receive an infraction and possibly be reclassified as an Aberration or an Anomaly. He took a great risk keeping this poem. With one of his last breaths, Cassia’s Grandfather said to her, was that “I am giving you something you won’t understand yet. But I think you will someday.

Read More
580 Words | 3 Pages

The common style in both poems are persuasive. Dylan Thomas’s style is trying to urge us to live life to the fullest and to never give up. " Rage rage rage against the dying of the light" (3). By that Dylan means to push back against blindness, death and whatever is forcing you back in life.

Read More
902 Words | 4 Pages

Edgar Allan Poe is an acclaimed American author best known for his works of Gothic literature. Poe is considered to be an incredibly influential figure of the Romanticism movement, typically noted by historians and literary critics for his unique style and intense darkness in theme and mood. His style is often marked by emotive, descriptive language, and often uses a vast variety of literary devices to amplify the dark ideas and atmospheres of his pieces. Of this, Poe’s uses of personification and symbolism within The Tell-Tale Heart are absolutely exemplary of his unique style.

Read More
857 Words | 4 Pages

David Ignatow’s poetry expresses determination not from himself, but from someone close to him. He speaks of his father coming here and working, ready to push forward and get what he wants. His father was full of anxiety, poor, and in undesirable conditions, and he still kept going. (66). Ignatow’s father was determined.

Read More
1595 Words | 7 Pages

The literature of America has undergone radical change since it’s beginnings with the puritan tradition. This rapid development has essentially been driven by a “desire” for a new literary “expression of American identity” and “artistic independence” from Europe, which was the center of world power and culture in the nineteenth century . In 1837, Emerson demanded that an end be put to America’s dependence on and “long apprenticeship to the learning of other lands” and encouraged his contemporaries to think with their own minds . In order to truly understand the spirit of a nation, one must look to its artists writers and philosopher, especially those of reputation and influence within the nation itself . The works of Walt Whitman and Louisa May Alcott were heavily influenced by the changing atmosphere of the nineteenth century with its new emphasis on self and society .

Read More
1080 Words | 5 Pages

However, the work of these dark romantics did actually have much common with the transcendentalists. Both groups valued intuition over logic and reason. Both groups saw signs and symbols at different events. It is also connected to the gothic. This is also a religious story talking about their differences.

Read More
1276 Words | 6 Pages

In present literary criticism, there are no identified canons that determine a value for literary works. However, as discussed in Marjorie Garber’s book The Use and Abuse of Literature, she discusses how just as poems and novels do not have any one identified canon that determines a value, there is also no way to determine any right or wrong answers to understanding and interpreting literature. Rather than merely presenting facts, like textbooks or biographies, poems and novels evoke questions, thought, yielding ideas and sparking argument. And one of her most stressed aspect is that “poems and novels give rise to more poems and more novels (Garber 92)”. Tennessee Williams is able to elicit this response of questions and thought from his audience through a thematic

Read More
463 Words | 2 Pages

Refrain is used in the beginning, the end of every stanza, and again at the end of the poem. The speaker directly tells the reader “do not go gentle into that good night” (1, 6, 12, 18). This line, along with the one following it, reaffirms the idea of refusing death. The line following is, “Rage, rage against the dying of the light” (3, 9, 15, 19).

Read More
896 Words | 4 Pages

In accordance with Foucault’s theory and considering the aforementioned possible issues, this thesis will unravel the depths of Whitman’s literary homoeroticism in the following way: It first of all needs to be determined whether or not the seemingly homoerotic references in five of Whitman’s poems can be read with actual homosexuality in mind, or if they also could be said to be about either female characters or a more platonic kind of love or attraction. Although this poetry was considered atrocious and sinful at the time because of the presence of these features, the possibility of something more akin to the celebration of humanity as a whole, the same way in which the speaker celebrated himself in “Song of Myself” (another instance of Whitman’s infamous poetry not to be discussed in this thesis), should not be excluded without a second thought. Therefore, the question is where to draw that boundary. It ultimately also needs to be examined which parts of these poems were considered so contrived by Whitman’s contemporaries that they felt the need to ban and burn the book, because that is where the boundaries between past and present ideas of sexual immorality start to blur.

Read More
1011 Words | 5 Pages

Modernist poetry refers to poetry written, mainly in Europe and North America, between 1890 and 1950 in the tradition of modernist literature. It is characterized by a self-conscious break with traditional styles of poetry and verse. Modernists experimented with literary expression and form, stick to Ezra Pound 's maxim to “Make it new”. This paper examines different methods that Ezra Pound used to break the boundaries of traditional poetry and the techniques he used to pave the way for later poets. To

Read More

More about Blake's Influence On Dylan Thomas

Related Topics

Open Document