Themes: Death
Type: Villanelle
Background
- Written by Dylan Thomas when his father was dying, and the poem is addressed to him
- It is a vigorous, impassioned diatribe against the inevitability of death
- The poet is encouraging his father to fight against death with all this strength
- Describes valiant and praiseworthy behaviour of different kinds of outstanding men – “wise men”, “good men”, “grave men” and hopes his father will be one of these things
Form and Structure
- The poetic form is villanelle (19 lines) – 5 groups of 3 lines (tercets) and a final quatrain
- The rhyming scheme of the tercets are ABA and the quatrain is ABAA
- Villanelle is to create emphasis with repetition – Thomas builds up rage and indignation
- The pattern of the villanelle is based on the idea of alternating night and day.
- Thomas is a very passionate poem but is organised into villanelle structure – but doesn’t lose it meaning
Language and Imagery
- The poem contains many contrasts – night/day, gentle/rage, dying/light, sang/grieved, etc
- There is the imagery of sunrise/sunset – darkness preoccupies Thomas (extended metaphor – day represents life, the night the afterlife, and the sunset represents the moment of death)
- Other imagery – lightning, blazing meteors & other images of lights and fire to liven intensity and capture the readers’ attention
- Paradox – the dying men who have gone blind can still “see” in a metaphorical sense
- Alliteration – “blinding” “blaze” “blind” and “be”
- Intensely personal poem – which is a source of its passion
- First-line – “Do not go gentle into that good night” – repeated four times
Themes
- Morality – lamented with the necessity and inevitability of death (to rebel against fate)
- Old Age – He urges the dying to fight their fate and hold on. Thomas argues wild, reckless, passionate behavior is wiser than to calmly accept fate.
- Transience – wonders what people could’ve done in the world had they been here longer
- Wisdom/Knowledge – wise people are pictured as being calm and collected, but this poem suggests is a determination to struggle – more dignified to fight than lie down & die
- Family – spoken from a son to a dying father, the poem suggests the intensity and power of family. Also works a role reversal – it is a son giving the father advice.
