John Goodby – författare

Like Shakespeare and Joyce before him, Dylan Thomas expanded our sense of what the English language can do. Rhythmically forceful yet subtly musical and full of memorable lines, his poems are anthology favourites; his ''play for voices'' Under Milk Wood a modern classic. Much loved by The Beatles and Bob Dylan, he is a cultural icon and continues to inspire artists today.This new edition, released to commemorate the centenary of Thomas''s birth, collects more of his poems together in a single volume than ever before. With recently discovered material and accessible critique from Dylan Thomas expert John Goodby, it looks at Thomas''s body of work in a fresh light, taking us to the beating heart of his poetry.

Discovering Dylan Thomas is a companion to Dylan Thomas’s published and notebook poems. It includes hitherto-unseen material contained in the recently-discovered fifth notebook, alongside poems, drafts and critical material including summaries of the critical reception of individual poems. The introductory essay considers the task of editing and annotating Thomas, the reception of the Collected Poems and the state of the Dylan Thomas industry, and the nature of Thomas’s reading, ‘influences’, allusions and intertextuality. It is followed by supplementary poems, including juvenilia and the notebook poems ‘The Woman Speaks’, original versions of ‘Grief thief of time’ and ‘I fellowed sleep’, and ‘Jack of Christ’, all of which were omitted from the Collected Poems. These are followed by annotations beginning with a discussion of Thomas’s juvenilia, and the relationship between plagiarism and parody in his work; poem-by-poem entries offer glosses, new material from the fifth notebook, critical histories for each poem, and variants of poems such as ‘Holy Spring’ and ‘On a Wedding Anniversary’ (including a magnificent, previously unpublished first draft of ‘A Refusal to Mourn’). The closing appendices deal with text and publication details for the collections Thomas published in his lifetime, the provenance and contents of the fifth notebook, and errata for the hardback edition of the Collected Poems.

Discovering Dylan Thomas is a companion to Dylan Thomas’s published and notebook poems. It includes hitherto-unseen material contained in the recently-discovered fifth notebook, alongside poems, drafts and critical material including summaries of the critical reception of individual poems. The introductory essay considers the task of editing and annotating Thomas, the reception of the Collected Poems and the state of the Dylan Thomas industry, and the nature of Thomas’s reading, ‘influences’, allusions and intertextuality. It is followed by supplementary poems, including juvenilia and the notebook poems ‘The Woman Speaks’, original versions of ‘Grief thief of time’ and ‘I fellowed sleep’, and ‘Jack of Christ’, all of which were omitted from the Collected Poems. These are followed by annotations beginning with a discussion of Thomas’s juvenilia, and the relationship between plagiarism and parody in his work; poem-by-poem entries offer glosses, new material from the fifth notebook, critical histories for each poem, and variants of poems such as ‘Holy Spring’ and ‘On a Wedding Anniversary’ (including a magnificent, previously unpublished first draft of ‘A Refusal to Mourn’). The closing appendices deal with text and publication details for the collections Thomas published in his lifetime, the provenance and contents of the fifth notebook, and errata for the hardback edition of the Collected Poems.