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"Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night", by Dylan Thomas

This villanelle is one of the best-known poems by Thomas

By John WelfordPublished 3 years ago 5 min read
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The poem

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 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 sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on that 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.

The Villanelle

Dylan Thomas’s poem “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” (it has no title other than the opening line) is one of the best-known examples in English of the “villanelle” poetry form. As a verse form, the villanelle is less well known than the sonnet, but a number of well-known poets, including W H Auden and Sylvia Plath, have been inspired by its constraints to make powerful poetic statements.

A villanelle is a poem of 19 lines split between five tercets (i.e. three lines) and a final quatrain (four lines). The rhyme scheme requires only two rhymes throughout, that of the first and third lines of each tercet (and the first, third and fourth lines of the quatrain) being one rhyme, and the middles lines of the tercet (together with the second line of the quatrain) being the other.

However, the most distinctive feature of the villanelle is that whole lines are repeated throughout, such that the opening line of the first tercet re-appears as the closing line of the second and fourth tercets, and the closing line of the first tercet is also the closing line of the third and fifth tercets. The two lines also provide the closing couplet of the final quatrain. Only 11 of the 19 lines are therefore “stand-alone” lines.

This enforced repetition, in which the repeated lines are kept apart except for the concluding couplet, is therefore a powerful device that keeps the main concepts of the poem thudding back at the reader with an insistent rhythm that never goes away. This is a highly musical device that works well in the right hands, provided that the lines in question are strong enough to take it.

Discussion

In Thomas’s case, this is most certainly true. The poem was written in 1951 when his father Jack Thomas, a retired schoolmaster, was very ill and apparently close to death. In fact he lingered on for some months longer, eventually dying in December 1952 after the poem had appeared in Thomas’s “Collected Poems 1934-1952”. Dylan had been close to his parents, both physically and emotionally, for most of his life, and had been in the habit of meeting his father almost every day, to chat, talk about Dylan’s work, and do crossword puzzles together. The prospect of losing this solid rock in his life, when other aspects of it seemed to be falling apart, hit the poet very hard, hence the appeal in the poem for his father to fight against the inevitable for as long as possible.

The first tercet of the villanelle pulls no punches:

“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.”

The first and third lines need to be strong, because they are the lines that will carry the whole of the rest of the poem and form its conclusion. It is interesting to note the contrast between the lines; the first, despite the negative, giving an impression of gentility and smoothness with the words “gentle” and “good”, whereas the third line, with “against” and the repeated “rage”, is harsh and jagged in tone as well as meaning. It is noteworthy that all four of the words quoted here as the dominant words of these lines use the letter “g”, but to different effect.

The “middle four” tercets each look away from the immediate subject of the poem to consider attitudes towards death by, in turn “wise men”, “good men”, “wild men” and “grave men”, without any implication that the poet’s father falls into any of these categories.

In each case there is a contrast drawn between the puny efforts of the men and the realities of the world. Words “fork no lightning”, deeds are “frail”, and so on. Ultimately, all human efforts are useless against the inevitability of death, so all that is left is “rage”.

In the closing quatrain, the focus is brought back to Thomas’s father, and the personal “me” appears for the first and only time, as the poet calls for the rage to be directed at him if that is what it takes for the fight against death to continue.

Ultimately, the power of the poem comes from the knowledge that it asks for the impossible, and that no amount of rage, repeated however often one likes, will make the slightest difference to the eventual outcome. The reader or listener knows this just as much as the poet, but they then start to ask themselves if this is how they would react when their own turn comes along.

Another interesting aspect of this poem is that it is an atheist’s approach to death, in that no direct religious imagery is involved. Jack Thomas was a life-long atheist, and, although his son was never a practising Christian in any formal sense, he did have religious sensibilities that were mixed with a whole range of belief systems that were stronger and weaker at different phases of his life.

On the other hand, it could be said that the imagery in “Do Not Go Gentle” is religious in tone if not in form. In the final quatrain the words “curse” and “bless” have definite religious overtones, and the visions of the categories of men to whom the poem’s subject’s attention is directed are all spiritual to a degree, such as the wild men who “caught and sang the sun in flight” and the grave men “who see with blinding sight”.

“Do Not Go Gentle” should be compared with Thomas’s “Elegy”, which was written after Jack Thomas’s death. In the later poem there is no mention of “rage”, and religious sentiment, although not over-emphasised, is certainly present. The love that the son had for his father is what comes through most strongly, and this is the clue to understanding “Do Not Go Gentle”. If the father will not “rage against the dying of the light”, the son, about to lose his best friend, must do so on his behalf.

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About the Creator

John Welford

I am a retired librarian, having spent most of my career in academic and industrial libraries.

I write on a number of subjects and also write stories as a member of the "Hinckley Scribblers".

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