Abstract/Summary

This is a contribution to a book of essays on Dylan Thomas derived from a centenary conference on the poet's work in 2014 at Cambridge University. The chapter is a consideration of Thomas' poem 'The Hunchback in the Park', its manuscript sources and revision, and its relation to W. H. Auden's 'Squares and Oblongs' essay, which accuses poets in the revisionary activities as being the equivalent of dictatorial tyrants. This observation, which uses Thomas' manuscripts at Buffalo as evidence is both understood contextually and argued down with detailed illustration from work on this poem.