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Although the speaker of Thomas’s poem refers to concrete places like the seashore, a meadow, and a torture chamber, the real setting of “And death shall have no dominion” is more abstract. Consider, for instance, how the poem both opens and closes with cosmic visions. The poem starts with several lines that conjure an image of skeletons in a void-like space, suspended with “stars at elbow and foot” (line 5). Similar imagery returns in the final lines, where the speaker invokes an apocalyptic vision of the sun breaking down at the end of time: “Break in the sun till the sun breaks down” (line 26). By beginning and ending with these vast cosmic visions, the speaker emphasizes that the domain of life—or, more broadly, of existence—stretches far beyond our ordinary understanding. With this interpretation in mind, the real setting of Thomas’s poem is, arguably, this abstract domain of life. Such a claim echoes the poem’s title and refrain: “And death shall have no dominion.” The word dominion can refer either to the power someone holds over a territory, or to the territory itself. Death therefore has no dominion in two senses: it has no power over the domain of life.

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