"Poem in October" by Dylan Thomas: An Analysis

"Poem in October" by Dylan Thomas: An Analysis 

Dylan Thomas, who is acknowledged today by most scholars as 'the most brilliant poet produced by Great  Britain for two generations,' was a Welshman. Born in Swansea in 1914, he devoted himself to poetry at an early age, publishing a collection of eighteen poems in 1934 and another of twenty-five in 1936. Nurtured by Joyce, the Bible, and Freud, Dylan Thomas derived his original strength from that three-fold source. Obscure, incantatory, a foreigner to the logic and cohesion of reasoning, he produced from an alchemy of words and structural combinations a strange poetry that acts in the manner of a sonorous spell.

Dylan Thomas was an important part of the Apocalyptic movement. The Apocalyptic movement, heralded in 1938 by the proclamation of a sensational manifesto, was directed against mechanical civilization, which the Apocalyptics considered the key source of all twentieth-century man's misfortunes. But Thomas very soon refused to become absorbed by the movement and indeed disowned it as a literary school.

Dylan Thomas, a singer of an incomprehensible, dynamic, and cruel world, but of one in which childhood innocence tends to a profoundly religious insight into the enigmas of birth, death, reproduction, the gracefulness of the young shoot, and the victory of the ever-gnawing worm, is considered roughly equal to Milton or Shakespeare.

Written in 1944 and published in 1946 in the most remarkable volume of poems from the pen of Dylan Thomas, Death and Entrances, Poem in October represents a vivid description of the poet's thirtieth birthday. But though this poem is a birthday song, it is also a reminiscence by the adult poet of his childhood days. The key concept of this poem is our poet's journey from a mature man of thirty to an innocent child. The poem begins with our poet's awakening in the very early morning with the call of 'the water birds and the birds of the winged trees'. Then the poet 'walked abroad a shower' through the town and 'took the road over the border.'  But in the hilly area, he found fond weather where he felt the pleasantness of summer and the essence of spring. There he was able to visualize his glorious childhood days which were full of happiness and 'true joy' and when he 'walked with his mother through the parables of sunlight and the legends of the green chapels.'  Then the poet felt the presence of his childhood self in his mature heart. He felt that 'his heart moved in mine.' In the final stanza, our poet describes the decayed situation of the world of nature in October to suggest his present state at thirty. The poem ends with our poet's hope for singing his 'heart' s truth' in 'a year's turning.'

Thus, Poem in October evokes the inner desire of Dylan Thomas to return to his childhood stage with its unforgettable moments and pleasure and purity because of a child's close intimacy with Heaven and the King of Heaven i.e. God. Idealization of childhood stage is a very common theme in many poems. This poem reminds us of Henry Vaughan and William Wordsworth. But in his treatment and portrayal with his eloquent images and innovative phrases, Dylan Thomas is special. Because of his poetic skill and craft, Herbert Read opines, his poetry is 'the most absolute poetry that has been written in our time.' Edith Sitwell finds in him 'every sign of greatness.'