In this contemplative study of selected poems and works of prose, Barbara Hardy emphasizes Dylan Thomas' creative achievements and high intelligence and discusses the influences of his regional identity, his modernist style, his reflexive awareness and use of language and his themes. Hardy describes Thomas as a resourceful ""language-changer"" who, like Shakespeare, Dickens, Hopkins and Joyce, shaped the English language into a richly original melange of rhythm, imagery and literary allusion.

Reviews and essays that focus on this great American poet