Editing Dylan Thomas (section)

==Critical reception==
Thomas's work and stature as a poet have been much debated by critics and biographers since his death. Critical studies have been clouded by Thomas's personality and mythology, especially his drunken persona and death in New York. When [[Seamus Heaney]] gave an [[Oxford]] lecture on the poet he opened by addressing the assembly, "Dylan Thomas is now as much a case history as a chapter in the history of poetry", querying how "Thomas the Poet" is one of his forgotten attributes.<ref>{{cite journal|jstor=40548687|title=Dylan the Durable? On Dylan Thomas|first1=Seamus|last1=Heaney|year=1993|pages=66–85|journal=[[Salmagundi (magazine)|Salmagundi]]|publisher=jstor.org|issue=100}}</ref> The [[Poetry Archive]] notes that "Dylan Thomas's detractors accuse him of being drunk on language as well as whiskey, but whilst there's no doubt that the sound of language is central to his style, he was also a disciplined writer who re-drafted obsessively".<ref>{{cite web | title= About Dylan Thomas |url= http://www.poetryarchive.org/poet/dylan-thomas| author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.-->| website= [[Poetry Archive]] | access-date= 8 March 2016 }}</ref> [[David Holbrook]], who has written three books about Thomas, stated in his 1962 publication ''Llareggub Revisited'', "the strangest feature of Dylan Thomas's notoriety—not that he is bogus, but that attitudes to poetry attached themselves to him which not only threaten the prestige, effectiveness and accessibility to English poetry but also destroyed his true voice and, at last, him."<ref>{{cite book|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U0harY5GMjUC&q=%22Dylan+Thomas%22+criticism+holbrook&pg=PA233|title=Powers of Being: David Holbrook and his Work|year=1995|editor-first=Edwin|editor-last=Webb|chapter="The Petals of the Man": The Relationship of David Holbrooks Criticism to his Poetry|first1=John|last1=Ferns|page=234|publisher=Fairleigh Dickinson University Press |access-date=28 July 2012|isbn=978-0-8386-3529-2}}</ref> Holbrook’s negative evaluation of Thomas’s work, based on an ''ad hominem'' psychoanalytic reading, is rejected by Rhian Barfoot<ref>Barfoot, Rhian (2015). ''Liberating Dylan Thomas: Rescuing a Poet from Psycho-sexual Servitude''. Writing Wales in English. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. {{ISBN|978-1-78316-184-3}}. pp. 2-11</ref> as reductive and outdated viewed in the context of more recent psychoanalytic theory as found in the work of [[Lacan]] and [[Kristeva]], where the emphasis on the [[semiotics|semiotic]] and the materiality of language is seen as corresponding to Thomas’s poetic style and thus supportive of a positive critical evaluation of his work.

Many critics have argued that Thomas's work is too narrow and that he suffers from verbal extravagance.<ref name="Wroe-2003">{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/nov/15/poetry.highereducation|title=An insult to the brain|first1=Nicholas|last1=Wroe|work=guardian.co.uk|access-date=27 July 2012|date=15 November 2003}}</ref> Those that have championed his work have found the criticism baffling. [[Robert Lowell]] wrote in 1947: "Nothing could be more wrongheaded than the English disputes about Dylan Thomas's greatness&nbsp;... He is a dazzling obscure writer who can be enjoyed without understanding."<ref name="Philips-2004">{{cite journal|url=http://www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n05/adam-phillips/a-terrible-thing-thank-god|title=A Terrible Thing, Thank God|first1=Adam|last1=Philips|journal=London Review of Books|publisher=lrb.co.uk|access-date=27 July 2012|date=4 March 2004|volume=26|issue=5}}</ref> [[Kenneth Rexroth]] said, on reading ''Eighteen Poems'': "The reeling excitement of a poetry-intoxicated schoolboy smote the Philistine as hard a blow with one small book as [[Algernon Charles Swinburne|Swinburne]] had with ''Poems and Ballads''."<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|title=Dylan Marlais Thomas| encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of World Biography|year=2004 |publisher=Encyclopedia.com |access-date=31 July 2012|url=http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Dylan_Thomas.aspx}}</ref> [[Philip Larkin]] in a letter to [[Kingsley Amis]] in 1948, wrote that "no one can 'stick words into us like pins'...&nbsp;like he [Thomas] can", but followed that by stating that he "doesn't use his words to any advantage".<ref name="Philips-2004"/> Amis was far harsher, finding little of merit in his work, and claiming that he was 'frothing at the mouth with piss.'<ref>{{cite journal|url=http://www.lrb.co.uk/v22/n11/ian-hamilton/sorry-to-go-on-like-this |title=Sorry to go on like this |first1=Ian|last1=Hamilton|journal=London Review of Books |publisher=lrb.co.uk|access-date=27 July 2012|date=1 June 2000|volume=22 |issue=11 }}</ref> In 1956, the publication of the anthology ''New Lines'' featuring works by the British collective [[The Movement (literature)|The Movement]], which included Amis and Larkin among its number, set out a vision of modern poetry that was damning towards the poets of the 1940s. Thomas's work in particular was criticised. David Lodge, writing about The Movement in 1981 stated: "Dylan Thomas was made to stand for everything they detest, verbal obscurity, metaphysical pretentiousness, and romantic rhapsodizing."<ref>{{cite book|last1=Lodge|first1=David|title=Working with Structuralism|publisher=Routledge & Kegan Paul Books.|year=1981|isbn=978-0-7100-0658-5|page=[https://archive.org/details/workingwithstruc0000lodg/page/9 9]|format=PDF|url=https://archive.org/details/workingwithstruc0000lodg/page/9}}</ref>

Despite criticism by sections of academia, Thomas's work has been embraced by readers more so than many of his contemporaries, and he is one of the few modern poets whose name is recognised by the general public.<ref name="Wroe-2003"/> In 2009, more than 18,000 votes were cast in a BBC poll to find the UK's favourite poet; Thomas was placed 10th.<ref>{{cite web | title= The Nation's Favourite Poet Result – TS Eliot is your winner! |url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/poetryseason/vote_results.shtml| author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.-->|date= 8 October 2009| website= [[BBC Online]] | access-date= 8 March 2016 }}</ref> Several of his poems have passed into the cultural mainstream, and his work has been used by authors, musicians and film and television writers.<ref name="Wroe-2003"/> The BBC Radio programme ''[[Desert Island Discs]]'', in which guests usually choose their favourite songs, has heard 50 participants select a Dylan Thomas recording.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/desert-island-discs/find-a-castaway?q=Dylan+Thomas&type=music| title=Desert Island Discs: Dylan Thomas |access-date=14 December 2014|publisher=BBC}}</ref> John Goodby states that this popularity with the reading public allows Thomas's work to be classed as vulgar and common.{{sfnp|Goodby|2013|pp=6–8}} Goodby also cites that, despite a brief period during the 1960s when Thomas was considered a cultural icon, the poet has been marginalized in critical circles due to his exuberance, in both life and work, and his refusal to know his place. Goodby believes that Thomas has been mainly snubbed since the 1970s and has become "...&nbsp;an embarrassment to twentieth-century poetry criticism",{{sfnp|Goodby|2013|pp=6–8}} his work failing to fit standard narratives and thus being ignored rather than studied.{{sfnp|Goodby|2013|p=15}} In June 2022, Thomas was the subject of [[BBC Radio 4]]'s ''[[In Our Time (radio series)|In Our Time]]''.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001882k | title=BBC Radio 4 – in Our Time, Dylan Thomas }}</ref>