Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night - Dylan Thomas

DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT



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 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' Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Take a guess at the year this poem was written? 1865, 1910, 1727, 1643...For those of you who cheated and googled Dylan Thomas to get the answer you already know that all of those guesses are incorrect. Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night was published fifty-seven years ago in 1952, a year before Thomas himself would “rage against the dying of the light” and succumb to alcohol poisoning on the streets of New York City. I mention the year to show that this poem really wasn't written that long ago, although formally the poem is much older. Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night is a villanelle—a poetic form originating in 16th century France. Last year in this blog I wrote about another of my favorite villanelles, Elizabeth Bishop's One Art. The villanelle is without a doubt the most difficult poetic form to pull off with conviction and sincerity. Requiring multiple refrains, the villanelle operates on a strict scale of repetition and rhyme. The initial stanza sets the poem's groundwork, with the first and third lines not only rhyming, but serving as refrains throughout the rest of the poem. The second line in the initial stanza is also integral to the poem's design, with its end word providing the rhyming template for all other second lines in the poem. If all of this poetic shop-talk is confusing and you're a visual learner take a look above at the poem we're focusing on today. Dylan Thomas is not necessarily a poet I'd associate with formal mastery, but Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night is a flawless villanelle, both for its formal components and the overwhelming emotional buttons it pushes with an unrivaled ferocity.

Dylan Thomas wrote “My poetry is, or should be, useful to me for one reason: it is the record of my individual struggle from darkness towards some measure of light.” Certainly there's plenty of darkness and light in Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night. Right off the bat we learn this poem is about the close of life, a time when “Old age should burn and rave at close of day.” Thomas does not preach an easing into the afterlife; his philosophy, before all is said and done, will apply to wise men, good men, wild men, grave men, and the one man this poem is explicitly for, Thomas' own father. The poet has the same message for all of these people: “Do not go gentle into that good night. / Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Keeping in mind what Thomas had to say about his poetry, I can't help but believe this poem is not only his struggle with the impending loss of his father, but also his realization of his own mortality.

Examining the types of folks who Thomas invokes will help us to better understand the ideas that drive Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night. First we have the wise men, who “at their end know dark is right.” They have the vision to know that the end is coming and their power to change the result is insignificant. But “because their words had forked no lightning they / Do not go gentle into that good night.” The good men lament “how bright / their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay.” They see their lives in terms of the nature's beauty and the cycles of the sea, but like the wise men before them they “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Of course the wild men will fight their fate; heck, they even “caught and sang the sun in flight.” What a massive undertaking that would be! But this strength is tempered by knowledge arriving “too late” in life and so they too “Do not go gentle into that good night.” Even the grave men, who already have their thoughts shifting to death and “see with blinding sight,” they “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” These men are indicative of different temperaments and stages in life, yet they all approach the end of life with the same passionate attempt to squeeze every last moment, to prolong the one life they each have. And prolonging life is exactly what Thomas implores his father to do in the final stanza. Even if he can't do the impossible and live on through the dire stages of illness, Thomas wants his father to fight, to “curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.” It might be selfish because he cannot imagine a world without his father and it might be a futile pep talk to an already weakened man, but Thomas takes an all-too-real situation that each of us will face and filters it through poetry to create one of the most impassioned and forceful poems in the history of the English language.