Twenty-four Years by Dylan Thomas
"Twenty-four Years" is a poem by Dylan Thomas that reflects on the intersection of life, creativity, and the inevitability of death. Written on the occasion of his twenty-fourth birthday, the poem captures a dual celebration of youthful exuberance and an underlying awareness of mortality. Thomas employs a rich and compact language that evokes strong imagery and emotion. The poem's structure is characterized by a tension between themes of life and death, as the poet grapples with his fears while also celebrating the act of creation.
The opening lines present a somber reflection on Thomas's life, emphasizing sadness yet beckoning a call to "bury the dead." This indicates a desire to overcome the weight of mortality while simultaneously acknowledging its presence. As the poem progresses, Thomas shifts tone, portraying himself as a young artist ready to leap into the light of creative expression. The imagery he uses intertwines the themes of procreation and destruction, symbolizing the complex nature of artistic endeavor. Ultimately, the poem conveys an optimistic pursuit of artistic legacy, suggesting that his work may transcend time and defy death, encapsulating a hopeful vision of "forever."
Twenty-four Years by Dylan Thomas
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of World Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1938 (collected in Selected Poems, 1934-1952, 2003)
Type of work: Poem
The Work
Because of his almost obsessive preoccupation with death, each birthday was a milestone that called for a celebration, and on several occasions Thomas composed a poem that expresses his sense of where he stood as a man and an artist. “Twenty-four Years” is his earliest significant version of this celebratory mode, and it is full of both the exuberance of early manhood and his already familiar feeling that death was imminent. As Paul Ferris describes it, the poem is like an abrupt telegram in which a density of texture leads to a compactness that makes each line and image bristle with evocative power. The pattern of the poem is based on the oppositional tension that Thomas believed made a poem noteworthy, and the intermixture of life-enhancing and death-haunted declarations generates the tremendous energy that drives the poem (and the poet) on a journey toward “forever.”
The first two lines are self-enclosed assertions of the poet’s condition at the moment of creation. Thomas summarizes his life initially by epitomizing its somber qualities and stresses their importance by citing them as a constant source of sadness. Next, struggling to control his fears, he inserts as a chorus/comment the injunction to “bury the dead” so that their shade will not overwhelm everything else. There is a biblical echo in the second line as well, a suggestion that the prospect of death requires sympathy and compassion for a common human dread. Then, in a dynamic reversal of tone, Thomas matches the rhythms of the long second line with a sudden shift to the procreative, placing himself, in an echo of his birth, on the threshold of a poetic path or life journey. In a riveting image, he sees the young poet “crouched” in a posture of readiness, prepared to leap into the light (one of his figures for creative work) of a “meat-eating sun.” His location at the “groin of the natural doorway” fuses the sexual with the poetic; but the fecundity of this conception is immediately undermined by the comparison that the poet crouches “like a tailor/ sewing a shroud”—that is, already preparing, at least subconsciously, for his demise since the light cast by the “meat-eating sun” has the potential for destruction, as well as for creation.
There follows a slight pause, although the poem does not typographically indicate its necessity. The syntax, however, compels a degree of reflective hesitancy before the poet continues his portrait. Although he is “dressed to die,” his poetic life is almost arrogantly portrayed as a “sensual strut” in defiance of the aforementioned dead who “walk to the grave in labour.” Thomas often uses the word “labor” to connote some kind of burden, and he is calling for a proud stride. The tone of confidence, even brashness, is continued by his claim that his “red veins” are “full of money.” The poet is mocking his recognition that he would never have enough money from his poetry to live as he wished. He is also asserting that, in some utopian situation, “the elementary town,” he could properly profit from his craft. The last lines of the poem extend this note of optimistic idealism. Calling his life/work an “advance,” he insists that its “final direction” or ultimate goal is the time-defying, death-delaying of “forever.” Whether this is a prediction, a plea, or just a series of bold words to combat his fear, the calm measure of certitude substantiates the artist’s claims to be moving in the direction of eternity.
Bibliography
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