[Henry Quince]

Though we’re getting away from Dylan Thomas, I just wanted to say, Mark, that the Jungian line of philosophy appeals to me and that I have read one book by Hillman — The Soul’s Code, a fascinating book which I intend to reread soon.

And let me take this opportunity to thank you for your comments on my “Eye That Dwells...” thread in TDE. I didn’t want to bring it back up the board as I had something else active by then.

Henry

[Mark Allinson]

Henry!

Yes, The Soul's Code is a relatively recent work, pitched at the general reader. Hillman is so interesting. He is one of the few psychologists around today who is not ashamed to use the word "soul". His influence has spawned a whole school of "Archetypal Psychology", with writers like Thomas Moore, Robert Sardello and David Miller.

Hillman's magnum opus remains his Re-Visioning Psychology, for me the most important work in modern psychology since Freud's dream book. There is so much food for poetry in that book, and it is never off my desk. I would also recomment The Dream and The Underworld and The Myth of Analysis.

Perhaps some time we might open a thread on the poetic implications of Hillman's work, which I see as legion.



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Mark Allinson

[Jonathan Kinsman]

As to Dylan Thomas: he is a poet's resource, a mine of ideas and techniques for the laboring-to-love poet with pickaxe and time. I came to Thomas when I read that Bob Zimmerman took the name Dylan, acknowledging his motherlode from the reaches of Hibbings, Minnesota: an iron town.

Dylan Thomas inspired me to read more and write in varying styles. I think he is one of the major 20th century poets and continues to be a door through which others enter the art and craft.

Of course, his life, his wife and his patron provide grist for the scandal mill. But that is what many want in their creative types: clay feet and dysfunctional personality traits. But we have his work!

[Clay Stockton]

Don't mean to unearth Dylan again (R.I.P.!) but I thought I'd point out, for those who don't get the New Yorker, that this week's issue has an article responding to the new DT biography. The article is probably worth reading just for the following:

As {Thomas's wife} wrote in her memoir . . . “Nobody ever needed encouragement less, and he was drowned in it.”

The full text can be read here .

--CS

[Janet Kenny]

Clay
I just arrived here intending to post the same link.

I wanted to say that this explains much of the reason Americans think less of him than this New Zealander who also knew Wales.

I think of Dylan Thomas as the poet of the small town, the dowdy place and the troubled, trapped artist who finds large things in small things.

The celebrity plays no part in my personal reading of Thomas. There was a peculiarly inelegant cosiness in Wales. A bit like parts of Ireland.

I saw the dramatised version of Brendan Behan's memoir, "Borstal Boy", at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. Niall Tobin played the leading role. Behan like Thomas became a victim of celebrity.
"Notoriety and critical attention came to Behan in the mid-1950s and contributed to his downfall and death. "Critics are like eunuchs in a harem: they know how it's done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." His irresolute discipline collapsed into prolonged drinking bouts, and self-destructive incidents. The Hostage was Behan's last major drama - his last books were compilations of anecdotes transcribed from tape recordings. Like Dylan Thomas, he was lionized to death in the United States. A lifelong battle with alcoholism ended Behan's career in a Dublin hospital on March 20, in 1964, at the age of 41. - Behan's works have been translated into several languages, among them Stücke fürs Theater (1962) by Heinrich Böll. "

I first read and heard Thomas in my cliff-house by an estuary in New Zealand and I felt very close to him.

I have not been tyrranised by a string of Dylan fantasies although I love many of Bob Dylan's lyrics.

Dylan Thomas is for me a small town boy.
Janet



[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited July 02, 2004).]