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In My Craft Or Sullen Art Summary

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The poem “In My Craft or Sullen Art” by Dylan Thomas describes the poets passion and devotion for poetry. Through critical analysis and relevant quotations from the poem, this essay will show what the poem seeks to do and how the poem does this. One can see from the poem that the poet’s intention was to emphasise how poets are undervalued in the modern world. The opening line of the poem “In my craft or sullen art,” expresses this idea that poets feel isolated and that their art is unrewarding (1). The poet is trying to show the world his point of view on poetry and how dear it is to him. In line 12, “Not for the proud man apart” one can see how the poet is a modest man who writes poetry because he loves it. One can see that this …show more content…

From the readers point of view it seem that the poet is critiquing society as a whole. One can see that the poet is putting so much effort into the poems yet he receives little to no acknowledgement for the beauty he creates. From the hearers point of view it would appear that the poet is dissatisfied with “the lovers”. He is writing poetry about these people yet they do not seem aware of his work. He writes his work purely out of passion and love for poetry and not for fortune or fame. It seems that the poet wants the lovers with which he writes about, to at least acknowledge his laborious efforts. He does not want to be a world famous person but he does want to feel valued and not ignored by his intended audience. The message that is put forth is that people are often too involved in their own lives that they miss the simple things in life. The purpose of the poem is to highlight the poets admiration for poetry and how there is little value given to it in society. There are two stanzas evident in the poem. The first stanza has eleven lines and the …show more content…

The poet uses very specific words to illustrate his frustrations about the fact that he is not recognised by the lovers. His words are harsh and very descriptive in their imagery. He uses words like “sullen” (1), “griefs” (5), “raging” (13) and “towering” (15). These words portray the poet’s emotions and how upset and defeated he feels. The poem is structured in such a way that at first we are told about how his poetry is unrewarded in the modern world “sullen art”. The poet then goes on to tell us how he only gets inspiration from the moon while the lovers sleep unaware of their impact on the poets work “when only the moon rages and the lovers lie abed”(3-4). He then constructs this notion that he is all alone and nobody seems to appreciate the long hours that he puts into his work Ï labour by singing light not for ambition or bread”(6-7). There is then a reference to modern society and how poets nowadays are consumed by fame and fortune “or the strut and trade charms on the ivory stages” (8-9). They are missing the beauty and magic that poetry gives to the world. The poet dismisses how poets of the modern world are arrogant and pretentious, they only write something if they will benefit from

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