While often assumed, Gerard Manley Hopkins' influence on Dylan Thomas has needed substantiation. By placing the issue of Hopkins' influence on Thomas within critical, historical, and literary contexts, this study explores the issue and demonstrates Hopkins' influence. Summary and assessment of previous critical work on the issue of Hopkins' influence establish the ways in which this study continues, diverges from or completes work done in the past. Evidence from biographical work on Thomas, as well as his letters and prose, outlines his contact with Hopkins' poems. A discussion of Thomas' Welsh background relates his experience of Wales and Welsh prosody to Hopkins' corresponding experiences. The literary context of the issue of Hopkins' influence on Thomas is established by means of a two-part foundation. First, the possible influence of W. B. Yeats, Wilfred Owen, Hart Crane, and James Joyce on Thomas is distinguished from Hopkins' influence. Second, specifically Hopkinsian areas of influence on Thomas are discussed. These areas of influence serve as a critical framework within which six Thomas poems dating from 1934 to 1951 are analyzed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.59438 |
| Date | January 1990 |
| Creators | Searfoss, Kristin |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Arts (Department of English.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001073906, proquestno: AAIMM63632, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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