Analysis Of Do Not Go Gentle By Dylan Thomas

Poetry is a writing form that allows deep meaning to be summarized in just a few lines. Popular poetry topics can range from anything between love and hate, and joy and despair. Much of the time, poems are created through use of writing devices that are not always understood without deeper inspection. In Do Not Go Gentle, Dylan Thomas uses a repetitive villanelle form, nature imagery, and patterns of sound to create a message of defiance towards death of old age. The poem is organized as a villanelle, which is a highly structured form of poetry. It requires a specific rhyme scheme as well as stanza requirements and lines that get repeated throughout. Villanelles require the use of five three-lines stanzas, and then one four-line conclusion. One of two lines is repeated at the end of each stanza, and the first line of each rhymes with the first line of the next. (“Poetry through the ages”) …show more content…
“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.” This is to say that, essentially, one should not go down without a fight. The first and last lines of the stanza are the lines that get repeated throughout the poem, and they summarize Thomas’s message well. Additionally, they offer a bit of nature imagery, by comparing death to night and life to light. There is a significance to the rhyming of “night” and “light” because they are used as opposites and serve as the central meaning to the poem. Thomas uses a combination of assonance, alliteration, and consonance to give the stanza a united and cohesive feel, and the repeated sounds help give the stanza a “spitting” tone––like it’s angry and