Alliteration

"Lie Still, Sleep Becalmed"
By Dylan Thomas
(poem from poetryfoundation.org)

Lie still, sleep becalmed, sufferer with the wound   

In the throat, burning and turning. All night afloat   

On the silent sea we have heard the sound

That came from the wound wrapped in the salt sheet.

Under the mile off moon we trembled listening

To the sea sound flowing like blood from the loud wound   

And when the salt sheet broke in a storm of singing   

The voices of all the drowned swam on the wind.

Open a pathway through the slow sad sail,

Throw wide to the wind the gates of the wandering boat   

For my voyage to begin to the end of my wound,   

We heard the sea sound sing, we saw the salt sheet tell.   

Lie still, sleep becalmed, hide the mouth in the throat,

Or we shall obey, and ride with you through the drowned.

Biographical Information

            Dylan Marlais Thomas was born on October 27, 1914, in Swansea, South Wales. His father was an English Literature professor at the local grammar school and would often recite Shakespeare to Thomas before he could read. He loved the sounds of nursery rhymes, foreshadowing his love for the rhythmic ballads of Hopkins, Yeats, and Poe. Although both of his parents spoke fluent Welsh, Thomas and his older sister never learned the language, and Thomas wrote exclusively in English. Fascinated by language, he excelled in English and reading but neglected other subjects. He dropped out of school at sixteen to become a junior reporter for the South Wales Daily Post. By December of 1932, he left his job at the Post and decided to concentrate on his poetry full time. It was during this time, in his late teens, that Thomas wrote more than half of his collected poems. In 1934, when Thomas was twenty, he moved to London, won the Poet's Corner book prize, and published his first book, 18 Poems (The Fortune press), to great acclaim.

              Thomas describes his technique in a letter: "I make one image—though 'make' is not the right word; I let, perhaps, an image be 'made' emotionally in me and then apply to it what intellectual & critical forces I possess—let it breed another, let that image contradict the first, make, of the third image bred out of the other two together, a fourth contradictory image, and let them all, within my imposed formal limits, conflict." Two years after the publication of 18 Poems, Thomas met the dancer Caitlin Macnamara at a pub in London. At the time, she was the mistress of painter Augustus John. Macnamara and Thomas engaged in an affair, and married in 1937. In 1947 Thomas was awarded a Traveling Scholarship from the Society of Authors. He took his family to Italy, and while in Florence, he wrote In Country Sleep, And Other Poems (Dent, 1952), which includes his most famous poem, "Do not go gentle into that good night."

(biographical information from poets.org)

Explanation of Technique

              Alliteration is a poetic device used in poems, in which words with the same first constant sound appear close together within a line of a poem. Therefore, the sound of the words have to be similar not the letters. These poems are often considered "tongue twisters." A line such as, "We saw the sea sound sing, we saw the salt sheet tell", makes Dylan Thomas' poem above an alliteration poem.

Interpretation of Poem

              In, "Lie Still, Sleep Becalmed", Dylan Thomas is telling a story about a person sailing on a silent sea with a creepy twist. This line from the poem is very important to the meaning of the poem at the end of it, "Lie still, sleep becalmed, hide the mouth in the throat, or we shall obey, and ride with you through the drowned." I interpreted that as controlling your tongue and being quiet at the right time, or else you will reap the consequences.

(photo from rb-29.net)

Explanation of Visual

               This is a picture of a ship sailing across a sea that is calm. I chose this picture, because the sea is the setting of the poem, "Lie Still, Sleep Becalmed." I feel like this picture depicts how the sea is during the poem. Also, the sea could represent of you should be, for example in an argument. You should be calm, controlling your tongue, and listening first.