Do not go gentle into that good night

Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,Old age should burn and rage 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 theyDo not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how brightTheir frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,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 sightBlind 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.

Dylan Thomas

• Dylan Thomas was a Welsh poet born on 27th October 1914. He died on November 9, 1953 in St Vincent’s Hospital, New York.

• During his lifetime he wrote many great poems, including ‘Fern Hill’, ‘The hunchback in the park’ and of course ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’.

• In 1936, he met Caitlin Macnamara who later became his wife the following year. In 1939, they had their first child and had two more.

• When Thomas’s father became old he went blind and very weak.• His father became very ill and died in 1952, and the poem is thought to

have been a response to those events. • He began touring in America, and arrived in New York in 1953. He wasn’t

very well and was put into a coma on November 5th. He died four days later, still in a coma.

The structure‘Do not go gentle into that good night’ is more specifically a villanelle, a nineteen-line poetic form consisting of five tercets followed by a quatrain.

Uniform rhyme scheme of ABA ABA… with quatrain’s being ABAA.

The speaker asserts that old men at the ends of their lives should resist death as strongly as they can.

At the end of the poem, we discover that the speaker has a personal stake in this issue: his own father is dying.

Perhaps the most striking thing about the poem is the contrast between its form, which is strict, regular and controlled, and its message, which incites the man to "rage against the dying of the light".

Surely it isn’t possible to keep very tight control (like the form) but rage and get crazy like he suggests?

Tercet 1 and 2

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rage 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.

The first three lines are a metaphor for death.

Old age shouldn’t define how you leave the world. You should ‘burn and rave’, go out with intensity.

Even though people know they’re going to die, they don’t just accept it.

(Death)

Command

Tercet 3 and 4

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

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.

As they approach death, these men shout out how great their actions could've been if they'd been allowed to live longer.

Men are celebrating birth and life before realising they’re just mourning death.

Repeating Lines

Each tercet describes a different type of man.

Tercet 5 and quatrain

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.

Pun on grave – very serious and dying.

Even though they are old and going blind, they still have power over how they die.

Simile - ‘Go out with a bang’Turns to

address his father - the poem is now personal rather than abstract, and the object of the poem is introduced.

He’s dying.

Two repeated lines throughout the poem reminding his father not to submit to death but fight it every step of the way.