Never Surrender To The English Hegemony-Postcolonial Analysis On Dylan Thomas's Poems

Dylan Thomas (1914-1953) was the most important leading figure of Welsh modern poetry in the beginning of 20 centuries. Although Thomas was brought up in a Welsh Environment, he could only speak English. But Welsh elements, like Welsh Bardic traditions and depiction of grotesque Welsh landscape, peppered his poems of his entire career. As the postcolonial studies have developed rapidly since 1970s, Dylan Thomas, once believed to be an immature Anglo-Welsh writer, began to be realized as a postcolonial writer. However, there is still a lack of a comprehensive postcolonial analysis on features of Thomas's poems. Employing the strategy of close reading and analyzing, the thesis is to review Thomas's poems by applying new postcolonial theories. For the postcolonial writing features reflected on every aspect of Thomas's poems, the thesis suggests that Thomas should be read as a great postcolonial writer, who never surrendered to the English Hegemony.The thesis is to analyze Thomas's postcolonial features in his poetic language, images and themes. The results show that Thomas shared most the features of other great postcolonial writers, which means that Thomas, although wrote exclusively in English, never accepted the English hegemony culture but challenged it and decentered it in his whole life.The thesis first analyzes Thomas's continuous efforts to Challenge the English Hegemony. As a result, Thomas's contribution to the deconstruction of English hegemony is emphasized; a more comprehensive way of reading Thomas's poems and other works are possible.