This book is a critical treat. Part of one Bibliographical Series of Supplements to BRITISH BOOK NEWS on Writers and Their
Works, this little book was originally written a few years after the poet''s (Dylan Thomas''s) death. This revised edition was written a decade after Thomas''s demise.
After the Introduction, the author gives a brief biographical sketch of Thomas''s life, his character, nature, and career; and discusses each of his books of poetry--he mentions only in passing his prose, such as Thomas''s autobiographical PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG DOG, and the radio play UNDER MILK WOOD (later made into a movie, though after this book was written, with fellow Welshman Richard Burton and his American wife, Elizabeth Taylor, starring in that production).
The author, as he states, attempts to approach each of the Thomas''s books of poetry as though he, as critic, were writing the first review ever written about that particular book of poetry. He emphasizes several themes that recur throughout Thomas''s work, but he also implies that everyone who has attempted to force the poet and his poetry into the Procrustean bed of any particularization of sense or theme throughout, has failed--the poet slips through their fingers like a shining trout escaping into the stream of Life.
The author emphasizes the poet''s growth throughout his life and career, in self and poetry. He compares and contrasts him to T. S. Eliot particularly (more contrast than not), as well as others such as Thomas Traherne, Wordsworth, and Blake, et al.
One of the themes the author emphasizes is the poet''s mystical qualities, interest, attitudes, and outlook. He states that this became even more openly and fully expressed in his later poetry, although it is there implicitly from his very first works.
Another theme the author emphasizes is Dylan Thomas''s unitary consciousness--very rare in our age of alienation from self, others, and nature. (Thomas seems to be a harbinger or foreteller or leader-into the mystical age of consciousness, which began to be widespread in the 1960s, and has progressed ever since in the New Age and Higher Consciousness movements. Poets are often prophets, and none more so than Dylan Thomas.)
The author summarizes the critical opinions about Dylan Thomas shortly after the poet''s death. He was unfashionable, and therefore often dissed by men far less than he, who thought themselves greater.
A short selected bibliography follows as the last section of this book.