Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas - Essay Example

The poem is written in the style of a villanelle, which is a poem comprising of only 19 lines and has a specific pattern to go with it. (Michael Myers, 2011) Such poems are usually penned in iambic pentameter and have six stanzas. Three lines each make up the first five verses, while the sixth verse comprises four lines, having alternate rhyming words at the end of each line. One of the important factors about a villanelle is that the two important lines keep recurring in all the verses. (Michael Myers, 2011) The two important lines in Dylan’s poem are:

“Do not go gentle into that good night and Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Though the style was popular during the 1800s, it is not common in contemporary poetry. However, Michael Meyer (2011) sheds light on this poem from different angles in a diverse and reflective manner. He urges students to use their skills of critical thinking expressing that, much of what is written is reflected in their own environments and lives. The diction used is both simple and easy to understand and the various figures of speech make the poem quite interesting.

Metaphors play a major role in Dylan’s poem. Old age is represented as a person and the good night is presented as Death. A good example is the following phrase from stanza 4 –

“Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight”

The poet implies that once they had been so active and shone in their deeds and triumphantly sang while they caught the fire of the sun, but now they realize that they had spent much time grieving life itself.

Another metamorphic phrase is –

“Words had forked no lightning”

In this phrase in stanza 2, the poet compares words to lightening that is forked, which means that though they are aware that they might not have achieved their goals in life, yet they are unable to keep Death away from them, even if they don’t want to accept Death easily. The poet uses a simile in stanza 5 which is –

“Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay”

In this phrase the poet implies the fading light is brought about by Death, explaining that once those very eyes were bright with happiness and gay abandon, but now is forced to fade in death.