Biography Essay

Dylan Thomas's life, work, and stature among twentieth-century poets are all matters of controversy and speculation. An essentially shy and modest man when sober, Thomas called himself the "captain of the second eleven" on the team of modern poets, an uneasy, pivotal ranking between the clearly major and the clearly minor poets. Others, too, such as John Crowe Ransom, have found difficulty in formulating a final opinion of Thomas: is he really only the best of the minor poets—those who achieve distinction within inherited modes and procedures—or is he the weak man, if that, among the major poets— those who absorb the tradition of ideas and forms which they then in some way radically change"

Until recently, Thomas's spectacular public life and personality, essentially distinct from the serious craftsman within, obscured the critical view of the body of work which the...