Dylan Thomas’s Language in ‘Poem in October’ Follows the ‘Grammar of Dreams’: Way of Construction of Sentences in the Poem
The language that Thomas uses to dress the thoughts of his poems has always drawn the attention of critics, admirers, and readers alike. Had they been written in the normal way, ordinary people would have found no difficulty in understanding the strands of his thoughts. But they have been written in a way which makes their meanings very difficult to the uninitiated. The poet’s careless attitude to grammatical rules, his attempt to see past and present simultaneously, his belief at the unity of man and nature and of death and life, his projection of matters in a surrealistic way (i.e. in a dream-like manner), and his greater emphasis to unrealistic things and creations of the imagination have indeed made his poetry very difficult to understand. Noting this, a critic has commented that his poems follow the ‘grammar of dreams’ and that his remarkable poem ‘poem in October’ is one such poem. Before we proceed to discuss this matter we shall have to be clear as regards the implications...