"Dylan Thomas's poems are exuberant, often florid and occasionally obscure".
a) How far do you agree with the above assessment of the collection in "Selected Poems"?.
Dylan Thomas's "Selected Poems" offers a wide magnitude of poetry, ranging from poems that are filled with exuberant, elaborate, florid words to poems that offer obscure, mysterious insights into metaphor and imagery. We are bombarded with lots of emotion and dropped into an overwhelming world of Dylan Thomas's language to describe his peculiar thoughts of life from his retrospect. .
Thomas uses this device of exuberance to bring his poetry to life, forcing the reader to delve into the depths of his writing, with its connotations of religion and sexual overtones. Thomas's use of the life cycle and the virtues of life mainly show the affluence of exuberance in his poems. This exuberance is conveyed to us by literature, which is impressively powerful and extremely emotionally charged. "Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines" is a particular poem which fits the 'exuberant' label. Thomas chooses to shock you by divulging his sickening thoughts about the birth, life and death process. He strays purposely away from the romantic side of the life cycle, by using words that have impact and offer a perception into hidden depths of life, which most poets would have never dared go. .
" Broken ghosts with glow worms in their heads.
The things of light.
File through flesh, where no flesh decks the bones.".
The words are very image conjuring and have a lasting impact on you. The reader is instantly thrown into thoughts and images of a new beginning in what seems to be an already dead entity. The exuberant overtones in this statement offer and outlook of the word in a different sense. Exuberance in this statement and indeed the rest of the poem is the apparent radiance of the light, which is being described. "Light breaks where no sun shines", this light is so powerful it can penetrate further and more powerfully than the sun.