In My Craft or Sullen Art

Question

I want to know whether the analysis of this poem is right...

Dylan Thomas : in my craft or sullen art

In my craft or sullen art

Exercised in the still night

When only the moon rages

And the lovers lie abed

With all their griefs in their arms,

I labor by singing light

Not for ambition or bread

Or the strut and trade of charms

On the ivory stages

But for the common wages

Of their most secret heart.

Not for the proud man apart

From the raging moon I write

On these spindrift pages

Nor for the towering dead

With their nightingales and psalms

But for the lovers, their arms

Round the griefs of the ages,

Who pay no praise or wages

Nor heed my craft or art.

the analysis:

Dylan Thomas is saying he's not an idiot.

He realizes that the people he most wants to write for
-- poor mooks out there trying to love someone
even though their hearts are full of rage and sorrow --
don't even READ his poems ...

Maybe that's why his "art" is "sullen" ...

But the truth he has to write about is
the story of the heart
trying to love
despite rage and grief ...

He has to write about how brave and doomed we are
to try to do something as perfect as loving
when our lives are choked with grief and rage ...

And those poor schmucks,
plodding away at their sad and angry lives,
sure as heck don't have time (or any desire) to read
weird, hard-to-understand, modernist poetry

but it don't make no difference --
you gots to write the truth that you gots to write

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

Please i need someone who can tell me if the analysis is right ?

Anonymous · Answer

hi, i think ur analysis is generally ok. just a tad emotional, which might cloud ur reading. i get ur v obvious pain re the weird modernist poem tho. im with u on tt.

u might want to consider listening to his recording on http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=7091#. it'll help give u a better idea as to the image he wants to portray. lines 4 n 5 are really sad, the way he read them.

the way he set craft and art up side by side, and tacked on "sullen" to art, is interesting in the image of art he's setting up. art here is humanised as a being which is resentful, and we are given to understand later on that its because nobody reads his work which he labours on in the still of the night - a time where nobody is awake, and he's the only one awake (sense of secrecy? carries connotations of working at his art in secret, coz its banned). the very ones he writes for, lovers, because they love (we presume it is thus so, because they're the only parties he doesn't tag negating adjectives to), don't read his works, when he writes to express all that they feel. he doesnt want to write for fame, fortune, recognition, or even money to survive. art is not a craft - sth u labour at as a means of survival. he doesnt write for the higher-ups (proud man), or for the dead to eulogise or mourn/soothe their passing. he writes for and/or about life, setting love up as the one party he will write for, because as one loves, one will encounter all the pain of life. hence it is appropriate to write for lovers. but sadly nobody reads his work, not even treating it as craft, needless to say art.

sorry if im rambling on, its coming off the top of my head, so not v organised. if im wrong, pls correct me.

Anonymous · Answer

this story has a wonderful and fulfiling meaning that touched my heart, and has caused me to start writing poems.

Anonymous · Answer

Yeah, that is a very suscinct summation. You gots to write the truth. I really like your words "how brave and doomed we are to try to do something as perfect as loving." The aspect of the lovers with their "griefs in their arms" was the part I least understood in the poem, and you helped make that a little clearer. But I think more of the emphasis of the poem may have to do with the poets own stuggle, and reassurance to himself that he's not crazy for sitting up late performing his sullen art. He is moon crazed, and it seems, without a lover of his own. And he aint gonna get paid - but that is, as they say, art for art sake, which I take away as the main theme of the poem.

In My Craft or Sullen Art

I want to know whether the analysis of this poem is right...

Dylan Thomas : in my craft or sullen art

the analysis:

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions