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Do Not Go Gentile Into The Good Night

This poem urges struggling against death and going gently into the night. It tells of old age raging at the close of day and wise and good men crying out against their dying light. While their words or deeds may have been imperfect, the poem encourages raging against death rather than accepting it peacefully. Dylan Thomas connects all men in facing death and tells them to fight for more life rather than slipping gracefully into darkness, no matter what they have done in life.

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
106 views2 pages

Do Not Go Gentile Into The Good Night

This poem urges struggling against death and going gently into the night. It tells of old age raging at the close of day and wise and good men crying out against their dying light. While their words or deeds may have been imperfect, the poem encourages raging against death rather than accepting it peacefully. Dylan Thomas connects all men in facing death and tells them to fight for more life rather than slipping gracefully into darkness, no matter what they have done in life.

Uploaded by

Petrica A.
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Do not go gentle into that good Wild men who caught and sang the

night, sun in flight,


Old age should burn and rave at And learn, too late, they grieved it
close of day; on its way,
Rage, rage against the dying of the Do not go gentle into that good
light. night.

Though wise men at their end know Grave men, near death, who see
dark is right, with blinding sight
Because their words had forked no Blind eyes could blaze like meteors
lightning they and be gay,
Do not go gentle into that good Rage, rage against the dying of the
night. light.

Good men, the last wave by, crying And you, my father, there on the sad
how bright height,
Their frail deeds might have danced Curse, bless, me now with your
in a green bay, fierce tears, I pray.
Rage, rage against the dying of the Do not go gentle into that good
light. night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the
light.

Dylan Thomas, 1914 - 1953


Do not go gentle into that good night Engineer
The essence of this poem is struggling to survive; pressing on to live as long as you can in the face of death,
even if it means suffering.

As many have written here, it appears that Thomas is writing this prototypical villanelle ode to his sickly,
dying father. Thomas reveals this to the reader in the very last stanza when he writes:

And you, my father, there on the sad height,Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray...

However, Thomas himself lived a life wrought with pain and struggle. He suffered from neuroticism and
mental illness from an early age. He also barely made his ends meet as a writer. He and his family were
regularly on the cusp of poverty, and he would write letters to fellow poets like T.S. Elliot soliciting money.

When he wrote this poem in 1947, he was struggling with severe alcoholism and was in the midst of an
unhappy marriage. His talent and celebrity were at their peak but he wasn't rewarded financially. He was
toiling as a frequent guest reader on BBC Radio. While the amount of airtime helped him gain a healthy
following in London, his managers never gave him a staff job, citing his alcoholism as the reason.

To summarize, the theme of this poem applies to Thomas and his father. Both were struggling to survive.

Do not go gentle into that good night Don't succumb to the peaceful release of death.
Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Struggle against death, referred to here as "the dying of the light."


Dylan connects all men together--wise men, good men, wild men--by writing that they all will face death.
When they do, he urges them to fight--"rage"--for more life, rather than gracefully slipping into darkness.
No matter what these men have done with their life, good or bad, they shouldn't give up the struggle for
more.

Interstellar, written by Jonathan and Christopher Nolan. Appropriately, the movie is about mankind's
struggle to overcome imminent extinction.

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