Dylan Thomas Literary Works Analysis

Dylan Thomas Literary Works Analysis

"And Death Shall Have No Dominion" is a poem in three nine-line stanzas. Each of the stanzas begins and ends with the title line, which echoes Romans 6:9 from the King James translation of the Christian New Testament: "Death hath no more dominion."(Dylan Thomas, 30) When Saint Paul said in his letter to the Romans that "death hath no more dominion," he meant that those who had chosen salvation would not suffer eternal damnation and spiritual death. Instead, they would be resurrected on the Day of Judgment and given new spiritual bodies. The title and the refrain give the theme of the poem which is resurrection and also introduce its characteristics, rhythm, and solemn tone. Thomas makes it clear from the beginning that he sees things from a different perspective. Thomas states that "death shall have no dominion," he carefully and deliberately leaves out the word "more." For Thomas, it is not a matter of death ceasing to have power. It is that death has never been the end of life.

The poem is built on repetition, and not merely of the title. Robyn V. Young states that "The central argument is less complicated, and the repeated defiance of death at the beginning and end of each stanza gives it the character of a spell."(Poetry Criticisms) Once the meaning of the first line is understood, the entire poem is understood. Each of the inserted lines and images is simply another way of saying that the life is immortal and that people's bodies may die but their spirits live on in the world. Thomas creates images that reflect God's connection with the earth and body. Thomas portrays the redemption of the soul in death, and the soul's liberation into harmony with nature and God. Thomas best depicts his beliefs, though abstract and complicated, to the reader with the use of analogies and images of God's presence in nature.

In the bible, Paul says of Jesus in passing that "death hath no more dominion of him." Thomas makes use of the same logic, and even of the same water symbolism, when he says of the dead, "Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again." However, he goes beyond the Christian tradition thus established and toward a more general mysticism in envisioning the dead men as resurrected, not in a single creator, but in the elements of nature. Human immortality is in such a way a spiritual consequence of the unity of matter in Thomas' universe. (Jacob King 29). The main issue in this poem is the nature of resurrection and, therefore, the essential nature of the life force being resurrected. By using certain symbols of the Christian Bible throughout the poem, Thomas demands that his views be seen in contrast to the Christian tradition in which he was raised.

The first stanza deals with the dead, who shall be made whole again at the end of time. Granting the worst that death can do, the poem proclaims life will reassert itself. (Robyn V. Young) It also portrays life and death as mere stages within the universal process. Despite the poignant analogies in this poem, the refrain has the most significance. It is a reminder that life does not end in death, and that although death may be unmerciful, our souls will endure regardless and be redeemed. "Dead men naked they shall be one with the man in the wind and the west moon"; sharply describes Thomas' view of how, in death, we are as pure and naked as we are in birth, and how only our souls are redeemed to become one with a greater existence. Once again, Thomas connects God with nature. He reveals that because God is present in nature, when we die our souls are given to God and therefore also given to the beauty of nature. Thomas also explores the grace and glory of the afterlife, where; though they go mad they shall be sane; though lovers are lost love shall not. In spite of the use of abstract ideas such as love, religion, and death in the other poems relating to this theme, Thomas' analogies of the gods with thunder, rainbows, rain, and night demonstrate how nature and the weather are affected by God's presence. When dead men reach the final stage of death, therefore, even though their bodies are gone, "they shall have stars at elbow and foot." The paradox of having elbows and feet and yet no body reiterates the poem's theme of resurrection. More important than the body is the spirit or the life force. "Though lovers are lost," the poet says, "love shall not." It is not people but people's spiritual force that shall endure.

There is much religious sounding language in the first stanza, in which many are echoes of the language of the King James Bible: "naked they shall be one," "stars at elbow and foot," and "they shall rise again." There is no Christianity here, however. God is never mentioned, there is no talk of souls or of salvation, and the moment at which all shall or shall not happen is not specified as any sort of Judgment Day. Whatever happens to people happens because that is the nature of things, not because a supreme being such as God has ordained it.

In the second stanza, Thomas treats the pain of life and death. Even if the pain should be bad enough for people's faith to "snap in two," they will still not suffer