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    Dylan Thomas Worksheet

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    Belano82
    Dylan Thomas' poem "A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London" is about the death of a child in London. It consists of three stanzas: The first stanza describes nature and its cycles of life, death, and rebirth. The second stanza refers to religious symbols like Zion, the ear of corn, and sackcloth which are typically used for mourning. However, the speaker will not "let pray the shadow of a sound" or mourn with sackcloth. The final stanza reveals the child who died is London's daughter. Her death is compared to being robed in the grains of time and the veins of her mother

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    Dylan Thomas Worksheet

    Uploaded by

    Belano82
    237 views2 pages
    Dylan Thomas' poem "A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London" is about the death of a child in London. It consists of three stanzas: The first stanza describes nature and its cycles of life, death, and rebirth. The second stanza refers to religious symbols like Zion, the ear of corn, and sackcloth which are typically used for mourning. However, the speaker will not "let pray the shadow of a sound" or mourn with sackcloth. The final stanza reveals the child who died is London's daughter. Her death is compared to being robed in the grains of time and the veins of her mother

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    Comentario de textos

    Original Title

    Dylan Thomas Worksheet (1)

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    Dylan Thomas' poem "A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London" is about the death of a child in London. It consists of three stanzas: The first stanza describes nature and its cycles of life, death, and rebirth. The second stanza refers to religious symbols like Zion, the ear of corn, and sackcloth which are typically used for mourning. However, the speaker will not "let pray the shadow of a sound" or mourn with sackcloth. The final stanza reveals the child who died is London's daughter. Her death is compared to being robed in the grains of time and the veins of her mother

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    237 views2 pages

    Dylan Thomas Worksheet

    Uploaded by

    Belano82
    Dylan Thomas' poem "A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London" is about the death of a child in London. It consists of three stanzas: The first stanza describes nature and its cycles of life, death, and rebirth. The second stanza refers to religious symbols like Zion, the ear of corn, and sackcloth which are typically used for mourning. However, the speaker will not "let pray the shadow of a sound" or mourn with sackcloth. The final stanza reveals the child who died is London's daughter. Her death is compared to being robed in the grains of time and the veins of her mother

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 2

    Grado en Estudios Ingleses

    Comentario de Textos Literarios en Lengua Inglesa


    Tutora del Centro Asociado Gregorio Maran, Madrid
    Tutor: Jess CORA ALONSO
    A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London
    By Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)
    Never until the mankind making
    Bird beast and flower
    Fathering and all humbling darkness
    Tells with silence the last light breaking
    And the still hour
    Is come of the sea tumbling in harness

    And I must enter again the round


    Zion of the water bead
    And the synagogue of the ear of corn
    Shall I let pray the shadow of a sound
    Or sow my salt seed
    In the least valley of sackcloth to mourn

    10

    The majesty and burning of the child's death.


    I shall not murder
    The mankind of her going with a grave truth
    Nor blaspheme down the stations of the breath
    With any further
    Elegy of innocence and youth.
    Deep with the first dead lies London's daughter,
    Robed in the long friends,
    The grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother,
    Secret by the unmourning water
    Of the riding Thames.
    After the first death, there is no other.

    15

    20

    Source: Dylan Thomas, Miscellany Two. Including A Visit to Grandpas and Other Stories
    and Poems. London: J. M. Dent and Sons, 1966, rptd. 1974, 12.

    1/2

    Questions for reflection and discussion about the text:


    Before approaching the text from any critical point of view, it is vital to read (i.e.
    understand) and know a text very well. This entails paying attention to:
    1) such formal aspects such as: rhythm, meter, rhyme, vocabulary (archaisms,
    allusions, echoes of previous poems, etc.), figurative language and other rhetorical
    devices;
    2) aspects appertaining to the content: the theme and subject matter of the poem, its
    tone, voice, attitude of the poetic I, etc. constituting the general meaning of the
    poem.
    In fact form and content are inseparable for details and aspects of the former do constitute
    the latter, but reading carefully all the formal aspects first make it easier to understand,
    discuss and interpret the meaning of the poem. Understanding and interpreting a poem
    always requires several in-depth readings, looking up words in a good dictionary, finding
    information on cultural references, etc. A mere first, superficial reading is never enough.
    Here are some questions or tasks that you must bear in mind when discussing and
    interpreting the poem.

    1. Whats the metre and rhyme, if any, of the poem? Bear in mind that scanning lines
    of poems is not done in the same way as in Spanish literature. Conventions are
    different.
    2. The use of alliteration is prominent in the poem. Identify examples. What is the
    effect of this? Is there any connection between this repetition of sounds and the
    meaning of the poem?
    3. Pay attention to the syntax and punctuation of the poem, especially in the first
    three stanzas. Work out the syntax that allows for a coherent reading. Does the
    author use conventional punctuation? What is the effect of this in connection with
    the "meaning" or "possible" message of the poem?
    4.

    Once you have done the previous task, pay attention to the division of the poem
    in stanzas. Is there a coincidence between the syntax, the content, and the
    stanzas? What does this suggest?

    5. Discuss and interpret the figurative language of the each stanza in order to form
    a coherent interpretation of the poem. Be alert to the use of metaphors, puns,
    paradoxes, and allusions (to the Bible and previous literature and literary
    conventions) and what they mean and suggest.

    2/2

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