“Do not go gentle into that good night” by Dylan Thomas
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.
Truthfully, I picked this poem mainly because I knew it was used in the film, Interstellar. (Nothing like a good ol’ film score by Hans Zimmer…see previous blog post.) Nonetheless, examining further into Do not go gentle into that good night, I’ve gained a newfound appreciation for the piece and Dylan Thomas’s craft. Throughout this poem, Thomas, leveraging emotive diction and adhering to a regular structure, advocates for individuals to uphold courage and bravery at the prospect of one’s mortality.
Through metaphors and a characteristic tone involving detail and deliberation, Thomas develops his belief on how an individual should approach the prospect of their own death.
The first stanza introduces this central idea of the poem while providing a schema for the rest of the piece. With the first line, Thomas cautions against resignation, to “not go gentle,” into the metaphorical “good night,” a reference to the end of one’s life, just as the onset of night commonly signifies the end of the day. Thomas’s usage of “good” evokes an essence of “alluring,” describing the persuasive temptation for complacency by individuals amidst death. He reiterates the contrapositive of this sentiment in the following line, “Old age should burn and rave at close of day.” Instead of an attitude of docility, emotions of passion and energy are demanded at the “close of day,” again a reference to death when used in conjunction with “old age.” With the last line of the stanza, Thomas intensifies these emotions towards death, ending with “rage”, a primal behavior deeply embedded within human nature, having begun with “not gentle” and “burn and rave.” The repetition of the word also creates an emphasis on this particular magnitude of reaction. Again, Thomas uses time and light to refer to death. Essentially saying the same thing three different ways, Thomas conveys the importance of this virtue of proactivity.
The succeeding four stanzas parallel the first stanza and further develop Thomas’s central idea, illustrating the application nature of this quality of persistence through sub-segments of “old men.”
The first group Thomas looks at is “wise men.” Through their experiences and learnings, they’ve developed truths about the world they live in. Thomas consequently states that they conclude that “dark is right”, or that death is necessary in the process of life. “Their words” can be interpreted as the wisdom each “wise man” imparts on the world, but having “forked no lighting,” does not create change. Thomas conveys that this segment of humanity should not be content with this outcome as they face death but rather persist in their core beliefs, acknowledging but defiant.
Thomas develops a similar sentiment for “good men,” those characterized by their dedication to serve the world. Though, like the wise men, they find an unfulfilling finality to their actions, “their last wave by.” In contrast to the stillness and serenity found in a“green bay”, protected from the larger bodies of water, the “frail deeds” are insignificant against the sea of suffering found in the world. Thomas advises these men, with this knowledge, to similarly fight the good fight against the inevitable.
Even for “wild men,” Thomas finds similarities in their plight. In their constant search for joy throughout their time, “[catching] and [singing] the sun in flight,” they “learn, too late” the superficiality in these moments. As they meet old age, they experience a certain emotional dissatisfaction with passing time, “[grieving] [the sun] on its way.” Allusions are also made to the Greek tale of Icarus, who fell to his death having flown too close to the sun with his waxen wings and ignoring the warnings of his mentor. Again, Thomas communicates that the next best action is to act in response to the unresolved tension, instead of resignation.
Likewise, with “Grave men,”’ or those who lead life pessimistically, Thomas details the conundrum they face. That, too late, “near death” and with “blinding sight”, they realize their life was merely their perception of reality, that even “blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay” or that even the disfortunate have the capacity to find optimism in life. This stanza most likely was in direct reference to his dying blind father who had served for his country. As a result, Thomas speaks here to his parents and others that, it’s in fact not too late to live life to the fullest, to do away with their old limiting beliefs.
The last stanza provides closure to Thomas’s theme, providing insight into the exigence of the poem. Confirming these theories of the previous stanza, Thomas directly references his father who is close to death, “there on the sad height.” Through all the exchanges he and his father may have had, Thomas now expresses one desire for his dying man, to do as he described for all old men to do and to not give in.
Embedded throughout the poem the common motif of light, particularly in the astronomical sense. Whether to describe the elation of how seniors led their lives (“sang the sun”, “deeds might have danced”, “Blind eyes could blaze like meteors”) or as a euphemism for death (“dying of the light”, “good night”), Thomas draws a connection between the cyclical, ubiquitous quality of sunlight and that of life and death.
Alongside using semantic techniques, Thomas makes deliberate syntactical choices to cogently develop his central idea, closely adhering to the structure of a villanelle. A villanelle consists of “five stanzas of three lines (tercets) followed by a single stanza of four lines (a quatrain) for a total of nineteen lines” and “is structured by two repeating rhymes and two refrains: the first line of the first stanza serves as the last line of the second and fourth stanzas, and the third line of the first stanza serves as the last line of the third and fifth stanzas.” In Thomas’s poem, the emphasis created by the repetition of “Do not go gentle into that good night” and “Rage, rage against the dying of the light” structurally and thematically unifies each stanza together. Additionally, the tone of the poem, solemn and legato, is crafted by the implementation of an iambic pentameter–a pattern involving 10-syllable lines and alternating stressed and unstressed syllables–and frequent usage of commas, giving breathing room for each object of each phrase of the ABA rhyme scheme and a constant 10-syllable strengthens the relationship between lines in each stanza.
Weaving the technical and creative qualities together in this poem, Thomas advocates for grit in the uphill battle–an enduring persistence to the brevity of life.
