And death shall have no dominion

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"And death shall have no dominion" is a poem written by Welsh poet

St. Paul's epistle to the Romans (6:9).[1] The poem entered the public domain in countries with copyright lengths of life + 70 years with all of Dylan Thomas's works on January 1, 2024.[2]

Poem

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.[3]

Publication history

In early 1933 Thomas befriended Bert Trick, a grocer who worked in the Uplands area of

New English Weekly.[5]

On 10 September 1936, two years after the release of his first volume of poetry (18 Poems), Twenty-five Poems was published. It revealed Thomas's personal beliefs pertaining to religion and the forces of nature, and included "And death shall have no dominion".

In popular culture

  • A Man Called Hawk Season 1 Episode 1 "The Master's Mirror" the poem is quoted by Avery Brooks and Vondie Curtis-Hall as they stand in a graveyard.
  • The Year One
    Death's Other Dominion
    " is titled after the poem.
  • The poem is featured significantly in the television series Beauty and the Beast.
  • It was used at the start and ending of the movie Omega Doom.
  • The titles of the novels They Shall Have Stars by James Blish and No Dominion by Charlie Huston are taken from the poem.
  • In
    Anti-Meridian
     the final five lines of the first verse open the CD, accompanied by music.
  • In the film Truly, Madly, Deeply the title is quoted in a conversation about death.
  • In the film The Weight of Water from the book of the same title written by Anita Shreve, Sean Penn in the role of melancholy poet Thomas Janes recites the last four lines of the first stanza. At the end of the film after Janes drowns, the film reprises his recitation of the second and third lines of this section, but this time the film leaves the last line poignantly unspoken.
  • In the second and final part of the 2011 BBC TV miniseries The Field of Blood the poem's second through ninth lines are recited from memory by character Dr. Pete, played by Peter Capaldi, in a pub as he drunkenly faces his imminent death of cancer, seated alone.
  • George Clooney recites part of the poem in the 2002 movie Solaris.
  • In the Season 6 soundtrack of Lost the piece which shares its name with the poem is played while detailing Richard Alpert's life.
  • Paul Kelly performs the poem as a song on his 2018 album Nature.
  • In the German film Rosenstrasse, 2004, directed by Margaretha von Trotta, a Jewish woman about to be deported to Auschwitz recites part of the poem to another woman who is also about to be deported, "Though lovers be lost, love shall not, and death shall have no dominion."[6]
  • Dr. Niki Alexander, forensic pathologist, played by Emilia Fox, reads the whole poem at her father's memorial service in the 2012 episode of Silent Witness (TV Series): "Death Has No Dominion, Pt. 1" and the episode title is based on the poem.
  • Mithu Sanyal's German novel Identitti (2020) features the poem as part of a ritual carried out by the goddess Kali, a character in the novel.

Notes

  1. ^ Online copy of the poem
  2. ^ Fine, Camille (December 19, 2023). "Disney's early Mickey Mouse, Picasso, Tolkien and more art now in the public domain". USA TODAY. Retrieved 2024-01-29.
  3. ^ Thomas, Dylan (1943). "And death shall have no dominion". Poets.org. Retrieved 2024-01-29.
  4. ^ Ferris (1989), p. 79
  5. ^ a b Ferris (1989) p. 83
  6. ^ Rosenstrasse is available to view on Amazon.

Bibliography

External links

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