DYLAN THOMAS' MOST FAMOUS WORK

Under Milk Wood

Dylan Thomas' most famous work Under Milk Wood, published in 1954, is not only Dylan Thomas' last work but also his most famous one. During the last months of his life he rearranged it several times. On October 15, 1953, he finally gave the finished manuscript to the BBC and died just a few weeks later on November 9, 1953. The subtitle "A Play for Voices" explains the genre of Thomas's work very well. Regarded outwardly it is a radio play, but don't expect it to be a traditional radio play. Actually we have to speak of a mixture of different text types: drama, narrative and song. Under Milk Wood is set in a fictitious Welsh town, named Llareggub. Actually the name really sounds Welsh but as a matter of fact it is an anagram of the rude expression "bugger all." The play deals with the life of Llareggub's inhabitants from the middle of one night to the middle of the next. There is no main action but different episodes which are connected by the narration of two omniscient narrators, the first and the second voices. These voices just "switch" from scene to scene or better from character to character. They do not actually belong to the people of Llareggub but introduce them to the listener. So they are mediators between the drama sections and the audience.
During the play we get to know about many of Llareggub's inhabitants. There is Captain Cat, a blind sea captain, who dreams of his long-drowned mates and then there are Miss Price and Mr. Mog Edwards, courting each other. We learn about Mrs. Ogmore-Pritchard who killed her two husbands by hygiene and about Mr. Pugh who plans to poison his wife, just to name a few of them. The single episodes are only related to each other by the fact that all characters live in the same town, maybe also by the fact that none of them is really innocent. Even the children seem to be spoilt as they play games in which the boys must either kiss a girl or give her a penny. Also the love between Miss Price and Mr. Edwards cannot be seen as a pure love for Edwards hears "the bells of the tills" when thinking of their wedding. After all, what is really special about Under Milk Wood, is Thomas' complex imagery. The line of "the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea" first seems to be an arbitrary collection of words but in fact all of them refer to the subject 'sea' and make sense. However the inventively poetic language of the two narrators which is so rich in imagery contrasts with the plain and ordinary language of the inhabitants.With Under Milk Wood Dylan Thomas brought sound and sense together in a new way. This is not in the least one of those radio plays you can simply enjoy in your armchair. In fact the action is less important than the poetry, the overflowing - maybe overloaded - imagery and the running rhythm of Thomas' language. As it seems to be almost impossible to understand each and every metaphor, you should just listen and feel the rhythm! "Listen. It is night moving in the streets, the processional salt slow musical wind in Coronation Street and Cockle Row, it is the grass growing on Llareggub Hill, dewfall, starfall, the sleep of birds in Milk Wood."

Dana Kestner