Michelle Highsmith Rough Draft
Professor Jennifer Atkins-Gordeeva
ENGL 1312: English Comp II-66W
September 2021
“Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night”
This poem is written by Dylan Thomas in 1947. The poem is written in the form of villanelle, because of the type of line lengths makes this poem a monometer. The feet of this poem is iambic because it has five two-syllables iambs. The structure of this poem is fixed because of its lines, meter, and stanza. The poem has five stanzas, nineteen lines, and there are three lines in each stanza. The rhyme scheme is ABA, ABA, ABA, ABA, ABA, ABAA and at the end of each line he rhymed night with light, day with bay, or way with gay. This poem talks about death and how the author is encouraging his dying father to fight death instead of surrendering to death.
Dylan Thomas states, “Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in the green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light” (Thomas 26). These lines are urging his dying father to fight. The word rage means to get angry and fight for your life. Don’t just yield to death but confront death and live. Johnathan Edwards states, “Thomas commands us and, ultimately, in his last stanza, his father, to be bold in the face of death. Where Thomas’s poem never turns from the power of death.” (Edwards 71).
Dylan Thomas states, “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.” (Thomas 26) Johnathan Westphal states, “It is often suggested “the sad height” is a bier. Yet that cannot be right. It would be pointless for Thomas to advise his father not to “go gentle” if he were already dead, as he would be if he were lying in his coffin on a bier. Thomas’s emotion must have a much fiercer and more complex object. He is advocating active resistance to death immediately before death, not sad mourning after it. Moreover, how can Thomas expect his father to curse and bless his with tears if he is dead? Dead men do not weep.” (Westphal 113)
Work Cited
Thomas, Dylan. “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.” Literary Cavalcade, 2001-01, Vol.53 (4) pg. 26 EBSCOhost Education Source https://web-a-ebscohost-com.uaptc.idm.oclc.org/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=235bea20-cd6c-4194-9665-5a8e06c643c3%40sdc-v-sessmgr01&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#AN=3943857&db=mih
Edwards, Johnathan. “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night: Dylan Thomas and the Art of Dying.” Use of English, 2006, Vol.67 (3) pg.71 EBSCOhost Education Source https://web-a-ebscohost-com.uaptc.idm.oclc.org/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=0&sid=d7012274-1eeb-4378-89a2-f696febcb9a0%40sdc-v-sessmgr03
Westphal, Jonathan. “Thomas’s Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.” The Explicator, Washington, Vol.52, Iss.2, Winter 1994, pg.113 ProQuest https://www-proquest-com.uaptc.idm.oclc.org/docview/216772496/95E25FDC3ADA4785PQ/1?accountid=39906
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