Yeats or Thomas?

[jisbell00]

OK, so, the C20th. Yeats passed away in the 1930s.

Sailing to Byzantium, BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

I

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees,
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

II

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

III

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

IV

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

Thomas died in 1953, but November, so we just miss him. Here's a link:

https://poets.org/poem/refusal-mourn-de ... ild-london

[CalebPerry]

Dylan Thomas looks a bit like James Dean in that picture, at least in terms of his style. I didn't realize he died at such a young age -- 39.

Let me start with the Yeats poem, which I am more familiar with. From the first time I read it, I was disappointed that it degenerated into a fantasy. Now, however, as an older man, I understand that. When you are getting to the end of your life, all you really have left is hope for a future, a future which must necessarily be miraculous because it sidesteps death. Still, my fantasies are a tad more realistic than Byzantium. Still, I really admire Yeats for being so honest about his feelings. His control of the language is also remarkable.

As for the Thomas poem, I find it sobering because it is clearly part of the "gibberish" trend that overtook much of the 20th century, and which I have been railing against for years. By carefully selecting images that seem to be connected, but aren't necessarily, Thomas was hoping readers would glean their own meaning from his writing. My view is that the poet must be in control of the message and find a way to make it compelling. I haven't read much Thomas, however, so I don't know if all his poetry was like this.

[jisbell00]

Splendid comments, Caleb, to which I shall return.

I agree 100% about the gibberish trend. I loved Thomas, then spend years disliking him, and now am prepared to love him again. I think that poem is very fine. But it's on the edge of gibberish, and a cause of gibberish in others. I also think his peak production is thin.

Cheers,
John

[CalebPerry]

We have to be careful because there are authors here who occasionally dip their toes into gibberish. Also, gibberish isn't a cut-and-dried thing, as I sometimes pretend it is. The distance between a word which is used brilliantly in a new way, and a word which is clearly out of place, can be very small. If we label too many usages as gibberish, then we may be limiting the evolution of the language.

But it needs to be said that the poets who tower over all the others are almost all poets who wrote clearly, so much so that you could understand what they were saying on first reading: Frost, Auden, Millay, Dickinson, Wilbur, Stallings -- and I'm not going back that far. Before about 1900, everyone wrote clearly. Gibberish is what a lot of poets fall back on when they don't have anything original to say.

[Morpheus]

Interesting choice of DT poem John, I've never read it before and the thought of a child burning is a difficult one to get my head around. It certainly invites contemplation, as does the Yates poem.

Caleb, I guess you will be familiar with DT's famous villanelle about ageing and dying. It's a bit easier to follow and sometimes used at funerals:

https://poets.org/poem/do-not-go-gentle-good-night

I guess one measure of comparison could be how much a poet has influenced your own thinking and writing. I'm leaning more towards DT on that basis because I went through a phase of really really wanting to write that way. I haven't read enough of Yeats and I know I'm missing out but what I have read has stuck (Cloths of Heaven poem had influence on my Halloween short poem). And it's fair to say I would have never written my Siren poem if I hadn't been inspired by the sea shanty fun of Under Milkwood.

"The only sea I saw Was the seesaw sea With you riding on it. Lie down, lie easy. Let me shipwreck in your thighs."

Sorry John, there I go again with the age old tradition

Oh, and No Country For Old Men is a great film too.

[jisbell00]

Yes, THomas chose a tough subject for his elegy, but to me, it works as a memorial and as art. His Do not go gentle is splendid stuff too, thanks for the link.

THomas had an imapct on me (as once upon a time did Hughes) which has receded into the mists of antiquity. I wrote my share of bombast up to the age of about twenty, and Eliot as much as anyone cured me of it. And Dante.

Yeats I return to again and again. What an ear. Here's another: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43296/byzantium

Caleb, how about Shakespeare? Not gibberish, but certainly unclear, as the Metaphysicals can be. Clarity returns with the C18th, IMO>

[Macavity]

The Thomas poem is so heartfelt John, no false eulogy here. Reflects the brutality of war, but paradoxically remembers the individual in the numbers. WW1 had many trench poets, but here a reflection of the carnage in a war that targeted and terrorised civilian populations (both sides in the conflict did this). And still bombs are being dropped on children.

Some detailed commentary can be found on the poem here:

https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/dylan- ... -in-london

Bw

Phil

[jisbell00]

That's a pretty delicate and fitting analysis, IMO, of a hard poem to write about. I always think of Thomas as a 50s poet, so I'd never known this was post-Blitz. I prefer knowing that, and the original publication in 1945. Synagogue gains weight there. Thanks for posting, Phil. It is a tremendous poem.

Thomas spent a morning in his study and was asked what he'd done. He said "I put a comma in a poem of mine." And then at dinner, what he'd done that afternoon. "I took the comma out." He worked hard at creating his soundscapes.

Cheers,
John

Here is another commemoration of World War II: https://poets.org/poem/death-fugue

[Macavity]

I do wonder what nuances are lost in translation, especially the sound, but this poem was impactful John. The repetitions allowed me some access to the original as well!

Thank you for sharing

[jisbell00]

Well, the original is better. It has a relentless, driven song to it. It's the poem that made me love Paul Celan (who was a Holocaust survivor). But the translation isn't bad, and it's nice, as you say, that a reader can take a look at the German and get a sense of it!

I think maybe the best translation of the Celan is the Thomas.

Oh - Celan was asked why he continued writing in German (he was born in modern Romania, but Eastern European Jews often spoke German, like Kafka). An d he said"I'm not going to let the Nazis take my language away from me." Beautiful.

Cheers,
John

[CalebPerry]

John, I've read very little Shakespeare that I thought was unclear, although I have mostly read his poems, not his plays.

[Macavity]

Perhaps you could record a SoundCloud version of the German? When time permits.

[jisbell00]

Hi Caleb, I'm glad you've had that experience of the sonnets! It's true, the plays are a little different.

Phil, I could, but I wouldn't know how to do it. It would be fun though!

Cheers,
John