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'"Shot from the locks": Poetry, Mourning, "Deaths and Entrances"'

Steven Vine

Swansea University Author: Steven Vine

Abstract

The essay examines Thomas’s 1946 collection 'Deaths and Entrances' in relation to the themes of mourning and elegy in that volume. Beginning with the imagery of locks and keys which figure in the Blitz poems, it argues that Thomas’s poetry lies both within and beyond the elegiac modes of t...

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Published: Palgrave Basingstoke 2001
URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa17982
first_indexed 2014-05-16T01:30:07Z
last_indexed 2018-02-09T04:52:08Z
id cronfa17982
recordtype SURis
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spelling 2014-05-15T17:08:44.7082236 v2 17982 2014-05-15 '"Shot from the locks": Poetry, Mourning, "Deaths and Entrances"' 8adad05ceecbaab7f4b2be512149b4d7 Steven Vine Steven Vine true false 2014-05-15 CACS The essay examines Thomas’s 1946 collection 'Deaths and Entrances' in relation to the themes of mourning and elegy in that volume. Beginning with the imagery of locks and keys which figure in the Blitz poems, it argues that Thomas’s poetry lies both within and beyond the elegiac modes of twentieth-century poetry, audaciously replacing conventional lament with ‘a language of celebration that parodically compounds irony with affirmation.’ In refusing to mourn, these poems heighten already existing strategies from Thomas’s earlier poetry and explore the ‘entrance’ of death as a traumatic event into the poetic text. Thomas is aware of his own implication in war; for example, in the collection’s title poem, the speaker shares an occult identity not only with the victims of the air-raid, but also with the Luftwaffe bomber pilot. The essay considers a group of poems that deal with the complexities and anxieties of symbolising or ‘mourning’ death’s catastrophic entrances. Drawing on ideas of mourning and symbolisation in psychoanalysis, it suggests that death, as an invasive ‘other,’ inhabits the way Thomas thinks about the very production of poetry, and that his labour of poetic writing can be understood as a continual performance of ‘deaths and entrances.’ Book chapter Basingstoke Palgrave 29 8 2001 2001-08-29 COLLEGE NANME Culture and Communications School COLLEGE CODE CACS Swansea University 2014-05-15T17:08:44.7082236 2014-05-15T17:07:20.6003256 Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences School of Culture and Communication - English Language, Tesol, Applied Linguistics Steven Vine 1
title '"Shot from the locks": Poetry, Mourning, "Deaths and Entrances"'
spellingShingle '"Shot from the locks": Poetry, Mourning, "Deaths and Entrances"'
Steven Vine
title_short '"Shot from the locks": Poetry, Mourning, "Deaths and Entrances"'
title_full '"Shot from the locks": Poetry, Mourning, "Deaths and Entrances"'
title_fullStr '"Shot from the locks": Poetry, Mourning, "Deaths and Entrances"'
title_full_unstemmed '"Shot from the locks": Poetry, Mourning, "Deaths and Entrances"'
title_sort '"Shot from the locks": Poetry, Mourning, "Deaths and Entrances"'
author_id_str_mv 8adad05ceecbaab7f4b2be512149b4d7
author_id_fullname_str_mv 8adad05ceecbaab7f4b2be512149b4d7_***_Steven Vine
author Steven Vine
author2 Steven Vine
format Book chapter
publishDate 2001
institution Swansea University
publisher Basingstoke
college_str Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
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hierarchy_top_id facultyofhumanitiesandsocialsciences
hierarchy_top_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
hierarchy_parent_id facultyofhumanitiesandsocialsciences
hierarchy_parent_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
department_str School of Culture and Communication - English Language, Tesol, Applied Linguistics{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences{{{_:::_}}}School of Culture and Communication - English Language, Tesol, Applied Linguistics
document_store_str 0
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description The essay examines Thomas’s 1946 collection 'Deaths and Entrances' in relation to the themes of mourning and elegy in that volume. Beginning with the imagery of locks and keys which figure in the Blitz poems, it argues that Thomas’s poetry lies both within and beyond the elegiac modes of twentieth-century poetry, audaciously replacing conventional lament with ‘a language of celebration that parodically compounds irony with affirmation.’ In refusing to mourn, these poems heighten already existing strategies from Thomas’s earlier poetry and explore the ‘entrance’ of death as a traumatic event into the poetic text. Thomas is aware of his own implication in war; for example, in the collection’s title poem, the speaker shares an occult identity not only with the victims of the air-raid, but also with the Luftwaffe bomber pilot. The essay considers a group of poems that deal with the complexities and anxieties of symbolising or ‘mourning’ death’s catastrophic entrances. Drawing on ideas of mourning and symbolisation in psychoanalysis, it suggests that death, as an invasive ‘other,’ inhabits the way Thomas thinks about the very production of poetry, and that his labour of poetic writing can be understood as a continual performance of ‘deaths and entrances.’
published_date 2001-08-29T18:38:23Z
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