Form, diction, metaphor, and other literary devices enhance the poignancy of Thomas's most noted poem.
To read the poem first, please visit "Do Not Go Gentle"
Subject:
Dylan Thomas’ father had been a robust, militant man most of his life, and when in his eighties, he became blind and weak, his son was disturbed seeing his father become “soft” or “gentle.” In this poem, Thomas is rousing his father to continue being the fierce man he had previously been.
Literary devices:
The form on the poem is a villanelle, with a rime scheme alternating “night” and “day.” “Good night” is a metaphor and a pun. “Dying of the light” is a metaphor. “Old age should burn and rave” in line two is a combination of metonymy and personification. “Close of day” is a metaphor. “Burn” in that same line is used metaphorically, as is “dark” in line four. In line five “their words had forked no lightning” is metaphorical. Line eight “Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay” employs personification and metaphor. Line ten “Wild men who sang the sun in flight” is exaggeration and metaphor. Line 11 “they grieved it on its way” is also exaggeration and metaphor. Line 13 “Grave” is a pun; “blinding sight” is an oxymoron. Line 14 “Blind eyes could blaze like meteors” is a simile. Line 17 “Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray” is a paradox.
Commentary:
A villanelle is a French poetic form that originally served as a vehicle for pastoral, simple, and light verse. That Thomas would employ that form for the subject of death enhances the irony of beseeching a dying person to rage. No doubt the poet also chose this form because of the repetition of the important lines, “Do not go gentle into that good night” and “Rage, rage against the dying of the light” and because of the tight formal structure of the form. The subject matter which is the command to the father not to accept death so easily lends itself to the dichotomy of “day” and “night” which become somewhat symbolic for “life” and “death” in the poem.
Each of the six stanzas has uniformity and a specific purpose:
Stanza 1: The first line is a command, “Do not go gentle into that good night.” Paraphrased, “Don’t give up easily.” The second line offers the speaker’s belief that even when old and infirm, the man should stay energetic and complain if necessary as long as he does not give in to death easily. Then line three again is a command, “Rage, rage against the dying of the light”: Fight, complain, rail against the oncoming of death.
Stanzas 2, 3, 4, and 5 each try to persuade the father to “rage against the dying of the light” by offering evidence of what wise, good, wild, and grave men have done. For example and to paraphrase stanza 2: Even though wise men know that they cannot keep death away forever and especially if they have not accomplished their goals in life, they don’t accept death easily; they “Do not go gentle . . . .” Similarly, in stanza 3, good men exclaim what might have been, their “frail deed” might have shone like the sun reflecting off the waters of a “green bay,” and they, therefore, “Rage, rage” against the oncoming of death. Likewise, in stanza 4, wild men whose antics seemed to shine as brightly as the sun and who thought they were so optimistic, but later realized they spent much of their life in grief, still they “Do not go gentle . . . .” And in stanza 5, grave men whose eyes are fading fast can still flash life’s happiness, as they “Rage, rage . . . . ”
Stanza 6: The speaker addresses his father. Paraphrased, “And so my father you are nearing death—yell at me, scream at me, cry out; to see you do that would be a blessing for me and I beg you to show me that militant man you once were: “Do not go gentle . . . . ”
To hear Dylan Thomas read this poem, visit Academy of American Poets
