Liberating Dylan Thomas

Criticism of Dylan Thomas has tended to rest too heavily on the lazy assumption that his poems are primarily a reflection of his inner, psychological troubles. With Liberating Dylan Thomas, Rhian Barfoot undertakes the challenge of freeing Thomas from such constraints, analyzing the poetry instead on its own terms, identifying the sophisticated conception of the possibilities and limitations of language that underpin Thomas's complex practice. Barfoot highlights the sensuous quality of the poems and Thomas's exhilarating, demanding linguistic innovations. By separating Thomas the unforgettable figure from the work he created, Barfoot allows us to appreciate it anew.

Rhian Barfoot was awarded a PhD, and now teaches, at Swansea University

Much criticism of Dylan Thomass work relies heavily on the assumption that his poems are an expression of his inner, psychic troubles. This study challenges that assumption. Instead it identifies the sophisticated concept of the possibilities, and limitations, of language that underlies Thomass complex poetic practices. It brings out the sensuous delight in words that resulted in an exhilaratingly demanding and inexhaustibly innovative poetry. This book emphasises how Thomas conjured with language because he loved its power, when fashioned into a poem, to suggest so much including the urgent processes of physical being that existed beyond its reach. In deliberately excluding Thomas the mesmeric man from its attention, the study returns us to Thomas the poet

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