Poetry Postmortem #10: Love in the Asylum
Dylan Thomas on co-dependency
After falling ill at the famed Chelsea Hotel, Dylan Thomas was taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital where he succumbed to pneumonia in November 1953. Known for his incessant drinking, poor diet, and general malaise, Thomas is a staple figure among the literary canon. Many will know him for his Villanelle, Do not go gentle into that good night, or his play for voices, Under Milk Wood. Both of these works have permeated the membrane of our collective consciousness since they were published in 1951 and 11954 respectively.
In 1946, Dylan Thomas wrote and published the poem, Love in the Asylum, in Deaths and Entrances; his most famous collection. The poems included predominantly deal with the aftermath of the war. Dylan Thomas did not fight at the front due to a lung condition, but he was able to find employment at the BBC. His job was to write scripts for propaganda films at the behest of the Ministry of Information. While he was not seeing the devastation first-hand, it wouldn’t be a stretch to assume that Thomas would have learned about it through BBC broadcasts of the time. Is it beyond comprehension that he would call the collection—in which the poem is housed—Deaths and Entrances?
At its heart, Love in the Asylum deals with the conflicts of turbulent relationships. Its alternating line lengths show this indecision—as does the title itself. People who had loved ones committed to asylums likely believed it was out of love. While we have the benefit of hindsight, a lot of these places led family members to believe it was the best place for the mentally sick. Our first glance may lead us astray, sending us down the path of confusion, but don’t be misled. This conflict is what remains at the very heart of the poem.
The opening line, “A stranger has come,” establishes a strong subject and sets the uneasy tone. What is so unusual about this is the subversion. If a stranger turns up at your door, I would suspect that most of us might feel a little on edge, but this isn’t the case for our speaker. But he goes on to clarify that they are to “...share my room in the house not right in the head”. The literal reading would be a room in the asylum, but taking the title into account, the speaker may be switching out “heart” for “room”.
We are not sure of who the stranger is until the third line of the first stanza:
“A girl mad as birds…”
This metaphor is oxymoronic because of its associating birds with madness. When I think of birds, I think of them chirping as the sun comes up. In Welsh mythology, the Adar Rhiannon (Birds of Rhiannon) are magical birds who can “wake the dead and put the living to sleep”. A welshman himself, Dylan Thomas would have been aware of this myth.
“…Bolting the night of the door with her arm her plume.”
The girl keeps the light for the speaker, blocking out the darkness. The image of “her arm her plume” evokes something grand and decorative. While she is “mad as birds”, she offers protection. Right now, we are under the impression that the girl is a positive influence on the speaker. Though it would be a mistake to get comfortable, for the following line “Strait in the mazed bed” would indicate otherwise. Is this a strait jacket? A narrow passage of water?
According to our speaker, the girl “deludes the heaven-proof house with entering clouds”, further alluding to her protective nature. The house as “heaven-proof” conjures a dark image, but the clouds—associated with serenity—deceive what is harming him. By now, the girl becomes an almost magical figure, which is further evident in the third stanza: “She has come possessed…”
Dylan Thomas makes use of repetition by bringing up the struggle between light and dark:
“Who admits the delusive light through the bouncing walls, / Possessed by the skies…”
She commands nature at her will; showing the speaker she is something grand. He both fears her and adores her. The word “delusive” means to give a false impression, which in this case, is in reference to the light. This takes us back to the entire premise of the poem; codependency and toxic relationships. While the concept of a toxic relationship is a very modern term, this turbulence is ever present.
“She sleeps in the narrow trough yet she walks the dust…”
A “trough” is a long, shallow container that animals such as pigs eat and drink from. Without knowing this, one could be forgiven for thinking of a coffin. Perhaps this was the author’s intention? We associate coffins with the gothic, and taking what we already know about the girl in the poem, this would match up quite nicely. The speaker goes on to say:, “yet she walks the dust,” which provokes a lot of questions. Where is the dust? What is the dust? Yet is an intriguing conjunction; then repeated with the following “Yet raves at her will,” indicating unbridled rage.
The last line of the fifth stanza is the first time we have a direct reference to the title:
“On the madhouse boards worn thin by my walking tears.”
For every poem, the last stanza is arguably the most important. It’s the bow on the present, the cheese on the spaghetti, or the top-coat of a manicure: it ties it all together. Again, we are treated to bouts of repetition in “And taken by light in her arms at long and dear last,” which shows the pull and sway the girl has over the speaker. In a draft of Love in the Asylum, Dylan Thomas toyed with the last line, adding:
“Suffer the first madness that moved the earth and the stars.”
This more literal approach gets the job done, but it almost deflates the rest of the poem. The coy suggestions and allusions are what make the poem so compelling. The finished line, which reads, “I may without fail / Suffer the first vision that set fire to the stars,” points towards a final explosion. Throughout the poem, we have witnessed the conflicts of the speaker; questioning if this girl—“mad as birds”—is a positive or negative influence. But I wonder if there is a different reading that others may not have seen? What if the “first vision that set fire to the stars” is a reference to the creation of the universe? If this is the case, the girl would act as a catalyst for the end of the world. Just like the reader, our speaker isn’t sure if he likes that.
Dylan Thomas married Caitlin Thomas (née Macnamara) on the 11th of July, 1937. Their marriage was stormy, as is noted in a myriad of places. Caitlin later admitted that she was likely jealous of Dylan Thomas’ success. Acquaintances and friends of the pair noted how they were afraid of Caitlin. But this isn’t the full story. And this is perhaps reflected in Love in the Asylum. According to Caitlin’s diary, she spoke fondly of him after his death, writing:
“Oh God, oh Dylan, it must be cold down there; it is cold enough on top, in November: the dirtiest month of the year that killed you on the ninth vile day. If only I could take you a bowl of your bread, and milk, and salt, that you always drank at night, to warm you up.”
The girl in the poem resembles Caitlin Thomas, but with such biographical information, we must be careful not to shoehorn the poet’s life into the poem. Another poet whose relationship was infamously controversial is Sylvia Plath. Her marriage to Ted Hughes is the subject of many arguments amongst academics today, with some erring on the side of Hughes.
Her poem, The Jailer, uses nature in a similar fashion to Dylan’s Love in the Asylum:
“I imagine him / Impotent as distant thunder…”
Both poems evoke the struggle of loving someone you know is bad for you but find yourself willing to ignore. Plath calls her jailer “the keeper of keys,” similar to Thomas’ girl who is “mad as birds” and “Bolting the night of the door with her arm her plume”. But in their similarities there are differences. In Plath’s poem, there is an anger that is absent from Love in the Asylum:
“I wish him dead or away / That, it seems, is the impossibility.”
Our speaker does not wish the girl “mad as birds” dead at all; in fact, he likely wouldn’t cope without her. This codependency is what makes the poem so disturbing. As outsiders, we can only watch the perceived helplessness. By the final lines, the speaker is wholly devoted to the girl who has “come possessed”. Though The Jailer and Love in the Asylum share an overbearing figure in angelic disguise, they differ in their approach: with Plath taking the more verbose approach as opposed to Thomas’ rather stark poesi.
On the whole, Dylan Thomas’ poem seeks to express the inner conflicts of a lover torn between being alone and settling for a rather tumultuous relationship. During a time where keeping your loved ones close was paramount, it is no surprise that he was toying with such ideas. In my view, Dylan Thomas successfully portrays ideas of codependency and manipulation in this six stanza verse. His usage of nature and the elements bolsters these ideas. Thomas’ real relationship with Caitlin provides us with a window into the poem that takes us far beyond the first reading. The initial reading of a poem can provide a lot of answers, but understanding what you will never know for certain ensures a clear head when tackling the root. And if we are to truly understand Love in the Asylum, we must give ourselves the greatest chance by gaining the most information, whether that be biographical, historical, or documented.
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This is the complete play as we know it, and not earlier drafts which have existed in various forms dating back to 1931.
Such a striking poem - and great analysis! I'm a big fan of his style and you've helped me appreciate the depth of his subtext.