Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

The poem “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” by Dylan Thomas is a concise poem in the villanelle form. Thomas chose this form due to its fixed verse form and its sing-song roots. The tight confines of the villanelle force Thomas to restrict his thoughts and emotions to metaphors expressed in limited lines. As a villanelle, the poem contains five three-line stanzas and one four-line stanza. The first and third lines of the first stanza provide the two alternating refrains incorporated throughout “Do not go gentle into that good night”. Thomas employs the first refrain, “Do not go gentle into that good night” as the third line in the second and fourth stanzas. He repeats the second refrain, “Rage, rage against the dying of the light” as the

The sixth and final stanza concludes with the first refrain in the third line and ends with the second refrain in the fourth line. The last stanza also includes the previous rhyme, but it adds an extra line, resulting in an ABAA rhyme. “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” provides the reader with the impression that they should read it slowly and thoughtfully. Thomas provides a steady rhythm through his application of long and short vowels, adding to the sense of pace provided by the words themselves. The reader is like a voyeur to Thomas' narrator who has written "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" for their father. Thomas implies a sense of grief and longing subsumed by the seeming overt hostility he expresses toward the suggested impending death of the narrator's father. He layers these emotions within the villanelle form similar to a blacksmith forging Damascus steel. Thomas alludes to men and their faults or shortcomings as justifications to resist death, alternating purpose and anger

When split up, the reader can interpret “catching the sun” as taking risks in life and “singing the sun” as being joyful in life (line 10). Those two ideas are not regrettable, but line eleven “And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way”, tells the reader that not learning the lessons of life is regrettable. Once more, the narrator repeats the first refrain to tell the reader that the subject of the stanza should not be content with the life they have lived (line 12). Though “Wild men” have lived a life full of adventure and joy, they did not gain wisdom or learn any lessons during that time. Those “Wild men” and the reader should lament living in a wasteful manner. The fifth stanza contrasts with the fourth stanza as it scolds serious men who wait until death to realize that they could have experienced additional happiness in life. In the thirteenth line, “Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight” the narrator's “blinding sight” refers to the epiphanic moment before death when the “Grave man” realizes he should have sought further happiness. The fourteenth line, “Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,” tells us that the grave man could have experienced happiness and joy in his life if he had not been willfully blind to them. The second refrain, in this stanza, completes the idea that these men should continue to fight for life so that they may witness and