"Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" By: Dylan Thomas

Dylan Thomas left school at the age of sixteen to become a writer. His best known poem is this poem, "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night". Thomas had a drinking problem which was the cause of his death at the age of 39, in 1953.

          The title of this poem is the first line, not surprisingly the line that is repeated several times throughout the poem. By just reading the title, we most likely think the poem will have a calm, melancholy, soft, tone or mood but as we read the poem, we get the sense the poem holds more of a sad and fearful tone. As we focus on the rhyme and meter of this poem, we see the pattern is a b a a b a...aa. We are able to identify the meter as iambic pentameter and at the end of the poem there is a couplet, two lines that are connected by the use of rhyme at the end of their verse. A couple times in this poem we see the use of enjambment, for example in lines 7 and 8 and lines 13 and 14, which helps to keep the poem flowing. The poem is structured so that each stanza has three or four lines, and each stanza except three repeat the refrain, "Do not go gentle into that good night".  We notice quite a bit of alliteration and assonance throughout the verses, along with the use of simile and metaphor. For example, good night is compared to death in the first stanza and also in the first stanza we see assonance within the words age, rave, and day.