Defending Dylan Thomas

[fauxklore]

This was kind of a blah day. I did, at least, catch up on sleep and get through some of the paper that is threatening to eat my living room (and starting to migrate into the bedroom). But I had planned to get out and do a volksmarch, instead of lollygagging in bed all morning. Oh, well, there is tomorrow.

The December issue of The Atlantic has an article dissing Dylan Thomas and, in particular, claiming that Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night is overrated. Bah! It is, admittedly, a poem with some odd and difficult choices of words. But it also has the sheer brilliance of the line "Curse bless me now with your fierce tears I pray." That is a line worth dancing in a green bay for if ever a line of poetry was.

Comments

[shmuel.livejournal.com]

It's the most famous villanelle in the English language for good reason. Especially when you consider that the previous titleholder was likely W.E. Henley's A Dainty Thing's the Villanelle (http://www.poemhunter.com/best-poems/william-ernest-henley/a-dainty-thing-s-the-villanelle/).