In the latest in the Critical Lives series, Goodby and Wigginton, Thomas scholars at Sheffield Hallam University, offer a brisk but comprehensive look at the life of Dylan Thomas (1914-1953), eschewing the popular image of a \u201crumpled, Dionysiac\u2026summoner of elemental powers\u201d in favor of a more nuanced portrait of a driven, focused writer who had penned a dozen \u201cmasterpieces\u201d by the time he was 19-and-a-half. The book moves confidently through Thomas\u2019 upbringing in a \u201cmiddling prosperous\u201d suburb of Swansea, his grammar school education, and his complicated relationship with his father, D.J., who named his son after a character in a Welsh medieval tale. From there we progress to the poet\u2019s early adulthood, and the authors make note of both Thomas\u2019 periods of intense productivity and his ambition; after his first collection, 18 Poems, was published in 1934 to not insignificant acclaim, Thomas wanted to build on its success \u201cas quickly as possible,\u201d and Twenty-Five Poems was published less than two years later. In between the two collections, Thomas met Caitlin Macnamara, whom he would marry. Next, the authors address World War II and its effect on Thomas, as well as his work making wartime documentaries for Strand Films, concluding with the poet\u2019s four tours of America in the early 1950s before his untimely death at the age of 39. This slim volume ably summarizes the events of the poet\u2019s life, but where it \u201cfill[s] a gap\u201d is in the \u201ccritically informed attention\u201d it pays to Thomas\u2019 writing, offering close reads of many of the poems and the \u201cpuns, wordplay and rhetorical devices\u201d he employed. \u201cThe life is read in the light of [Thomas\u2019] work, rather than the other way around,\u201d the authors write.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the latest in the Critical Lives series, Goodby and Wigginton, Thomas scholars at Sheffield Hallam University, offer a brisk but comprehensive look at the life of Dylan Thomas (1914-1953), eschewing the popular image of a \u201crumpled, Dionysiac\u2026summoner of elemental powers\u201d in favor of a more nuanced portrait of a driven, focused writer who had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1327"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}