blog 12

Joe Dzierzawiec

Blog 12

“Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”

 

 

 

In his poem, “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night,” Dylan Thomas utilizes the repetitive, marching rhythm of the villanelle to express anger and frustration at the prolonged terminal illness of his father. Thomas begins his 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.” The imagery of “burning,” “raving,” and “raging” are emphasized by the driving, martial meter of the villanelle; here, repetition is the key to recreating Thomas’s rage. The repetition mirrors the frustrated circles of Thomas’s mind, constantly anguishing and poring over his father’s condition. The literal repetition of certain key words, like the phrase “rage, rage” repeated several times over the course of the poem, is enforced by Thomas’s sharp iambs and the villanelle’s required repetition of rhyming end words. This multiple repetition drives the entire poem toward a mood of frustration at inactivity, at helplessness, and at death. It seems appropriate, then, that Thomas’s poem is an exercise in as much emotion, movement, and knee-jerk reaction as he can muster. Thomas’s driving motif is then convincing his father to not die slowly, willingly, helplessly, but to fight and rage until the end, to never give up his spirit. For Thomas, motion must never stop.