Do Not Go Gentle
Into That Good Night
Do not go
gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Source:
http://www.neuroticpoets.com/thomas/donot.shtml
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
Dylan Thomas, 1951
First of all, to understand what the poem is about we should have a very
detailed look at the biography of Dylan Thomas to contextualize. Dylan was
born in
Dylan is considered one of the most
important poets of the 20th century writing in English; “while his contemporaries
gradually altered their writing to serious topical verse (political and social
concerns were often expressed), Thomas gave himself over to his passionately
felt emotions, and his writing is often both intensely personal and fiercely
lyrical.” (Career and influence, Wikipedia).
Dylan’s father died on December in 1952, and
that’s the reason why he wrote that poem. We know that because the last stanza
is addressed to his father “And you, my
father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I
pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of
the light”. (6th stanza).
The death of his father affected him so much.
His father always whished to be cremated and that was a traumatic experience
for Dylan. “He was told that his father's
head had exploded in the oven and he ended up becoming violently ill when the
wind shifted and started blowing the oven's smoke in his direction. He asked
his wife to ensure that "nothing like that ever happens to me". (Neurotic
Poets, Brenda C. Mondragon).
The poem explores the personal experience of
grief and death and it has a sad tone. Its structure is a villanelle, a French
strophe which entered in English language poetry in the late 1800s. It is
composed by five stanzas which are called tercet and a quatrain. (Villanelle, Wikipedia) Its rhyme is
A-B-A, A-B-A, A-B-A, A-B-A, A-B-A, A-B-A-A. We can find visual rhyme;
night-light-right-bright-flight-sight-height; day-they-bay-way-gay-pray. The
poem has musicality to be easy to remember. Having taken a look at the whole
text, I think that this poem is a kind of commemoration to his father, like
Jorge Manrique in Spanish literature.
Manrique’s “Coplas a
Dylan and Jorge were very much
affected by their respective father’s death and both of them decided to think
about expressing their feelings through writing poetry. At the same time that
both of them earned money by writing new poems, they remember their respective
fathers in.
The 1st stanza makes reference to those that even having
everything they wish are happy on earth but old age plays an important role; it
doesn’t matter if you are rich or poor because nobody can escape from Death. The poem begins with the same
sentence as the title meaning that Death could appear in any moment and as
Dylan says, “do not go gentle”, people
shouldn’t trust in their lifetime because everything can end in a moment. But
the 3rd verse establishes a parallelism with the 9th, 15th
and 19th verses through which he openly shows the reader his hate
towards death. So Dylan advises
everybody to be careful because “old age
should burn and rave at close of day” (2nd verse).
The 2nd stanza shows Thomas’ ideal of the wise men who are
considered to know about this fact because they know that even after the death
of their bodies, their words will survive forever, so for this reason “wise men at their end know dark is right”
(3rd verse).
In the 3rd stanza he establishes a difference between bright
and good men. For him there are a few good men left but even they cry for the
bright ones. Here we can observe that he values good men and complaints because
they are going to die too, but for him bright men are in a higher
position.
Again he differentiates in the 4th stanza a new kind of men:
wild men. The author also points out that they don’t trust the night because,
although they learn too late, they have realised that death will come.
In the 5th stanza he mentions that even grave men who are
near death can be happy because they have lived a long life. Here Dylan says
again that he hates death.
Finally, in the last stanza the author directly begs his father not to
go gentle into that good night because death threatens every living thing on
earth, but as the final verse says he again hates “the dying of the light”.
As a conclusion, what Dylan Thomas wants to show the reader is that he
is really angry and afraid of death because nobody can escape from it, but he
writes this poem in an attempt to warn everybody and advise them not to forget
to live life while they can.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
· Dylan Thomas –
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Wikipedia, 2006
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dylan_Thomas
17.04.06
· Neurotic Poets:
Dylan Thomas, Brenda C. Mondragon, 1997 - 2006
http://www.neuroticpoets.com/thomas/
15.04.06
· Villanelle –
Wikipedia, the free encyclipedia, Wikipedia, 2006
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villanelle
16.04.06
· BBC –
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/dylanthomas/bibliography/pages/do_not_go_gentle.shtml
16.04.06
· Jorge Manrique, Justo Alarcón, 1998
http://www.lospoetas.com/g/jorge.htm 16.04.06