狄兰·托马斯

狄兰·托马斯（Dylan Thomas，1914年10月27日—1953年11月9日），威尔士诗人、作家。最著名的作品包括十九行诗《不要温和地走进那个良夜》。

生平

狄兰·汤马斯生于英国威尔士斯旺西，其父是一位中学校长。托马斯很早就表现出对于文学的特殊兴趣，他中学的时候曾担任学校刊物的主编，并发表了一些诗作。1931年，17岁的托马斯离开了家乡前往伦敦开始他的写作事业。20岁那年，托马斯发表了第一本诗集《诗十八首》，当时的评论界并没有特别关注这位年轻的诗人。但是美国的一些出版商却很看好他，把他之前所出的三本书做成一部合集《我生活的世界》在美国发行，这部合集后来为他赢得了威廉·福亥尔奖金。第二次世界大战期间，托马斯为英国广播公司服务，战后他仍为该公司的一套文艺节目写稿播音。1946年，托马斯发表了他最重要的一部诗集《死亡和出场》，这部诗集奠定了他在诗坛的地位。

除了写诗，托马斯也写过一些短篇小说发表在诗文集《爱的地图》中，并写了几个电影剧本，如《三个怪姐妹》等。1953年，托马斯因酗酒在纽约的切尔西旅馆逝世，享年39岁。

作品

《诗十八首》（1934年）

《诗二十五首》（1936年）

《爱的地图》（1939年）

《我生活的世界》（1940年）

《新诗集》（1942年）

《死亡和出场》（1946年）

评价

评论界普遍认为托马斯是继奥登以后英国的又一位重要诗人。托马斯的诗作大体属于超现实主义流派，其诗中所蕴含的内容较具有梦幻色彩。通过对于意象的描绘堆砌，托马斯所创造出来的诗境往往引人入胜。另外，托马斯很注重押韵，其诗以适于朗诵闻名。

Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953) was a Welsh poet and writer, whose works include the poems "Do not go gentle into that good night" and "And death shall have no dominion", as well as the "play for voices" Under Milk Wood. He also wrote stories and radio broadcasts such as A Child's Christmas in Wales and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog. He became widely popular in his lifetime, and remained so after his death at the age of 39 in New York City. By then, he had acquired a reputation, which he had encouraged, as a "roistering, drunken and doomed poet".

Dylan Thomas was born in Swansea in 1914, leaving school in 1932 to become a reporter for the South Wales Daily Post. A number of the some 200 poems he produced between 1931 and 1935 appeared in print while he was still a teenager, including one of his best known, And Death Shall Have No Dominion, the first he had published, in May 1933, in a national journal. While living in London, Thomas met Caitlin Macnamara; they married in 1937 and had three children: Llewelyn, Aeronwy, and Colm.

He came to be appreciated as a popular poet during his lifetime, though he found earning a living as a writer difficult. He began augmenting his income with reading tours and radio broadcasts. His radio recordings for the BBC during the late 1940s brought him to a wider public's attention, and he was frequently featured by the BBC as an accessible voice of the literary scene. Thomas first travelled to the United States in the 1950s; his readings there brought him a degree of fame, while his erratic behaviour and drinking worsened. During his fourth trip to New York in 1953, Thomas became gravely ill and fell into a coma. He died on 9 November, and his body was returned to Wales. On 25 November, he was interred at St. Martin's churchyard in Laugharne, Carmarthenshire.

Appraisals of Thomas's work have noted his original, rhythmic and ingenious use of words and imagery. Further appraisals following on from new critical editions of his poems have sought to explore in more depth his unique modernist poetic, setting aside the distracting legend of the "doomed poet", and seeking thereby to emphasise his status as a major poet of the 20th century.

Life and career

Early life

Dylan Thomas was born on 27 October 1914 in Swansea, the son of Florence Hannah (née Williams; 1882–1958), a seamstress, and David John 'Jack' Thomas (1876–1952), a teacher. His father had a first-class honours degree in English from University College, Aberystwyth, and ambitions to rise above his position teaching English literature at the local grammar school. Thomas had one sibling, Nancy Marles (1906–1953), who was eight years his senior.

The red-brick, semi-detached house at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive (in the Uplands area), in which Thomas was born and lived until he was 23, had been bought by his parents a few months before his birth.

At the 1921 census, Nancy and Dylan are noted as speaking both Welsh and English. Their parents were also bilingual in English and Welsh, and Jack Thomas taught Welsh at evening classes. One of their Swansea relations has recalled that, at home, "Both Auntie Florrie and Uncle Jack always spoke Welsh." There are three accounts from the 1940s of Dylan singing Welsh hymns and songs, and of speaking a little Welsh.

Thomas's father chose the name Dylan, which could be translated as "son of the sea" after Dylan ail Don, a character in The Mabinogion. His middle name, Marlais, was given in honour of his great-uncle, William Thomas, a Unitarian minister and poet whose bardic name was Gwilym Marles. The name Dylan being pronounced [ˈdəlan] in Welsh caused his mother to worry that he might be teased as the "dull one". When he broadcast on Welsh BBC early in his career, he was introduced using this pronunciation. Thomas later favoured the typical anglicised pronunciation and gave instructions that it should be pronounced that way (the same as Dillon ).