Dylan Marlais Thomas was born on 27 October 1914 at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive in what he was to refer to as the “ugly, lovely town” of Swansea, south Wales. His father, David John Thomas, the son of a Carmarthenshire railwayman, had gained a first class honours degree in English from University College, Aberystwyth, and, as a young man, had harboured aspirations as a poet. Frustrated in his own ambitions (he went straight from university to a secure teaching post at Swansea Grammar School), he nevertheless attempted to prime his son with the potential for poetic greatness, taking his first name from the ancient Welsh Mabinogion and his second from a bardic uncle, Gwilym Marles, who had himself taken it from the name of a river. Dylan’s m

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First published 02 April 2001

Citation: Phillips, Ivan. "Dylan Thomas". The Literary Encyclopedia. 2 April 2001.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5471, accessed 20 November 2009.]