i have a school project and i have to analyze this poem "do not go gentle into that good night" i read the poem over and over but i still cant grasp the theme/ meaning of the poem it would be greatly appreciated if someone helped me understand! thank you in advance

Basically Christina it's a poem about "approaching death". What the poet is saying is that we should fight with all our might against our own impending doom.

Les

hi, i'm doing the same kind of project, and i was wondering about how I can talk a little more in detail of this poems basic theme "approaching death", because writing about one thing may not be enough.

Here you go Tommy, search for yourself:

[www.google.com]


Les

Look up villanelle for the form. DT's father was dying and he (Thomas) wanted to encourage him to fight tooth and nail against the pull of death.

Of course, many believe it was a spoonerism for 'lying of the dight', but that's another story.

[www.onelook.com]

For the Scansion of this.... any ideas? i GUESSED trocheeic tetrameter... but.... i think thats wrong

Go here Woo Hoo:

[buxureta.notlong.com]


Les



Post Edited (01-12-05 00:55)

DT died in 1953, i.e. more than 50 years ago, so let's post 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 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.


For me, they are all 5-beat lines, but with many variations in the metric feet.

Reverting to Les' original response a few months ago, I read this poem as more about a son's attitude to his father than about advocating that people generally should fight against their doom. The poetic persona cannot bear to see his father resigned to death. He wants him to show at least as much fight as other old men have done. We may infer that he idealizes his father, feels very distressed, disappointed and perhaps betrayed by the fact that his father is dying, and believes that those feelings will be relieved if his father makes it abundantly clear, by tears, rage, etc, that he doesn't want to die. The villanelle form with its repetitions is perfect to express the obsessive attitude the son has adopted as a means of coping with the pain of the situation.

Ian

Hi there... im paul mika and i have a big head...i cant even read this poem let alone understand it. help me soon

Paul, do you mean you have something physically wrong with your head that prevents you from reading? If so, how can we Emulers help you?

From The Life of Dylan Thomas, by Constantine Fitzgibbon:
'D J Thomas (Dylan's father) had been ailing for some time. In fact he had never really recovered since his tongue cancer of 1932, and had gradually become an invalid. He was now losing his eyesight as well. The pride and fire had almost all gone out of him and he was becoming a husk of himself....The spectacle of his decline distressed Dylan greatly and inspired one of his last poems Do not go gentle into that good night.'



Stephen

I'm only eleven years old. No I'm not playing and I understood it. Just take your time. Don't read it extremely fast.


Take this tip. It will do good for you.

Can someone help me out with the assonance and consonance in this poem

Here you go Mario:

[64.233.187.104]


Les

Th definition helps a bit, but I still can't seem to pick up on much. Can ne one help

>I still can't seem to pick up on much

If you don't recognize the assonance and consance by definition, how are you going to explain your answers to your instructor when they give you an exam on the subject?


Les

Do not go gentle into that good night, ('g' sounds, 't' sounds - consonance)
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
('a' sounds. age/rave/day & rage below - assonance)
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. (dying/light - assonance)

Notice the high number of g's, t's, a's, and i's throughout the rest of it. Why do you suppose the poet chose those particular sounds? Do they suggest the emotion he is portraying, that his father should fight against death? Are they better choices than softer sounds, such as 'murmur', 'lullaby', 'nummy', 'lid', 'mama'?

Dylan is one of my favourite poets and I do wish I was writing an essay on this poem and not The Horse and His Rider!

I agree with Stephen - I think that what 'inspired' the poem was the poet seeing his father's gradual decline. That is the where the poem 'starts'. But Dylan takes it to another level.

" 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.

No one goes gently into darkness and death - as we meet death we feel regret for all the things we never did - or never said - or never wrote.

But somehow in the line
"And you, my father, there on the sad height, "

I get a kind of hope from the word height

Dont know if any of this makes sense - better get back to Joanna Baillie!
Gill

I'm analysing this poetry for university, I had never heard of it before this task but I find it beautiful and hopeful. The authoritarian stance taken by Thomas in the title makes his father's survival seem like an order. He idolises his father and it scares him to see him becoming weak and not like he used to be. For me, I feel the first line in the last stanza 'And you, my father, there on the sad height' refers to the father going somewhere Thomas cannot follow him - death - and he feels this loneliness and separation that he has not felt before. I could go on and on but I better get back to my analysis. This page helped me greatly, thanks everyone :)

Hi Bridget
I think you've got the gist of the poem. I liked what you said about Dylan - trying to 'order' his father to be strong - to battle with death and darkness - to fulfil all the poet's childish expectations of super -human strength. There is something terrifying about watching your parent become fragile- I think you become aware of mortality for the first time
Ginnyfly

hiya, i got some points...that could help some of u...

thomas hardy is writing to his father, addressed to a dyin g person. he cannot bear to see his afther give in and there fore wants his to fight against his doom.
the cycle of life and death formed a constant underlying theme throught the play!
full of rage, no pleases.

hope it helps

I am 13 years old and memorizing this and many other sympothetic poems for my 7th grade class project in langauge arts. I am here to inform my infered oppinion on the definition of this poem, because frankly I have read of many people not being able to interprate this extravagent poem by Dylan Thomas. I simply thought to myself while reading the poem that he was thinking of his fathers cancer and how he was about to die. I feel that Dylan was trying to fight off his fathers cancer on his own. In the second line it talks about his old age and how he should put that aside and go extreme towards each day he still lives. Then in the second stanza it says that the smartest men know that death will come and it is a good thing, because they will remember their words have not surrendered to the strikes and ridicules of others. They know they will not die unhappy and their minds un-nurtured. In the third stanza it says that the good man had dumb ideas, yet he felt he learned from them and althought they may have made him cry, he still will be happy knowing he got something out of it. In the fourth staza it says how the man untamed who chose the easy way in life and did not learn anything will be sorry about his efforts in his death. In the fifth stanza he talks about seeing what the blind see, and how they are so happy knowing that death is a wonderful thing ful of prosper. The last stanza he tells his father to not give in and go easy into that never ending darkness. To not let go of the light and give up on him. To live life until there is no more to live.
-But hey this is a poem, and there is never only ONE right answer, there are many. This is my answer.-

Jeremy
Very impressed with your understanding of Dylan - as you say many people find him difficult to read
Gill

On one level I think that DT is speaking to his father, begging him to show some emotion other than a resignation to death. He wants his father to be strong, to not give in, to 'rage' and fight against the closing of death. Yet in the earlier stanza's

"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."

The first lines of each stanza speaks of inevitability of death. Death is normally considered "darkness" which obscures light. The last wave by also implies at endings. In the third stanza, The first and second lines speak of sunrise and sunset (birth and death?), and joy and mourning. Sunrise and sunset is also a neverending cycle of light and darkness, birth and death. The 4th stanza, Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight "blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay". Was Dylan talking about the promise of Heaven, where everyone would be young and happy and well? Heaven is promised to be a place where the blind see and such forth. If he were, these old men who were dying knew that there was a better place waiting for them.

Yet for all the inevitability, Dylan still points at that these people still fight the inevitability of death. My thought is that he wasn't just speaking about fighting death, but rather, speaking as a whole about living life to the fullest, never giving up, never being resigned and sad about something that is coming.

This poem gives me a feeling of the indomitable spirit of man. I think what he is saying is that people (namely his father) should have continued trying to live his life and not let his cancer remove the living from the rest of his life. In summary, that though things may happen that can't be stopped, it doesnt mean that we should spend our lives just waiting for it.

Satin

hi im a gr 9 im analyzing the poem and I have to find the types of metephors that Dyland Thomas uses in the poem can you please help me thank you

Lily, certainly there are key phrases which are used metaphorically. That is they can be taken literally, or figuratively. Here are a few of them:


good night---figuratively meaning death

know dark is right---death is inevitable

deeds might have danced---their acts might have been glorified

blind eyes could blaze---eyes could burn out like a meteor


These should get you started. Read the comments above and you will get a better idea about the overall meaning of the poem.


Les

To me 'blind eyes could blaze' hints at rebirth, since blind eyes are generally clouded. Therefore blazing means sight is restored. imho only :)

his father is dieing and he is telling his father to resist death, to fight and be so passionate...to remeber all the stuff he had done and not to be ashamed etc

This poem is talking about of course his father giving into the light. But he is comparing all of these men metioned in the poetry to his father. wise men is refering to the philosophers to them death helps give life meaning, next line after that says that their word had forked no lightning, they do not go gentle into that good night...meaning their envision of death fell short the moment they had entered it. Once coming face to face to death, they want to rage, come back to tell the world about what death really is. The good men are the ministers, crying how bring their "frail deeds" might danced in a green bay. The wild men, is the artis/poet,who write about death, but learn that its to late to come back to write about it when you are dying. Grave men near death: are the scholars, to them joy is learning they want to rage,agains the dying of the light, because all they knew was a thougt about death but never experienced it. Then it talks about his father, "curse, bless" he wants to be assured that his father knows that he is important to this life and how his life has been to many others. That is what Dylan Thomas is saying..... {=o)~

hey christina.maybe this website can help.
[www.writing-world.com]
actually it's kind of a bit cheater if you are using this to do your assignment. cause the Havard professor had everything explained for this poem.heh. JIAYOUS!!!

ooops. Harvard i mean. sorry.

hey.what do you mean by 5-beat lines and metric feet? oh and did Dylan Thomas use iambic pentameter in this poem?

qy.

Each stressed syllable (beat) constitutes a metric foot. There will always be unstressed syllables accompanying those that are stressed to make up a given metric foot.

do NOT go GENtle INto THAT good NIGHT (five beats, every 2nd stressed = iambic pentameter)

twas the NIGHT before CHRISTmas and ALL through the HOUSE (four beats, every 3rd syllable stressed = anapestic tetrameter)

Those are Rising Meters

TYger, TYger, BURNing BRIGHT (4 beats. first, third, fifth, seventh syllables stressed = trochaic tetrameter)

GARdens of BABylon (two beats, first, fourth stressed = dactylic dimeter)

Those are Falling Meters

[rpo.library.utoronto.ca]

hey. thanks loads for giving me all the information.they helped alot.:)

qy.