Don't Go Gentle into That Good Night

**شموخ الكون** · 23-05-2011, 11:14 PM

[LEFT][CENTER][LEFT]السلام عليكم .. هاذي اول مرة انزل موضوووووع .. فقررت انزل هالقصيده .. ويارب الكل يستفيد ..
ودعواااتكم لي .. وللشخص اللي كتبها ..
هاذي قصيده ممتعه جدا .. وان شاء الله تستمتعوووو

Don't Go Gentle into That Good Night
by ..Dylan Thomas
[COLOR="DeepSkyBlue"]
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[/COLOR
].
 Introduction - Dylan Thomas was born at home in Swansea, Wales in 1914.
- His parents were middle class. His father was a schoolmaster in English at the local grammar school.
- He died in New York City in a drinking session in 1953.
- This poem was written after his father’s death. He speaks to his father as if he were present.
- ‘Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night’ is an emotional and touching appeal to his dying father not to die.
- The speaker is Dylan Thomas himself and the addressee is his father when he was about to die.
- Dylan was always grateful to his father for giving him a love of literature.
- He uses the imperative and negative form of the verb (go) to express a piece of advice.
- The title is conversational. It is repeated different times in different lines
- The father suffers from some points of weakness. The poet asks him not to give up but to resist and to stand

against his illness. Difficult words:
Night: death. Light: life.
Good night: good-bye night.
Gentle: weak.
Rave: fiercely a hack.
Frail: weak.
Blinding sight: see very clearly.
Meteors: hot and solid bodies from outer space.
Sad height: death-bed.
Curse: call for god’s punishment.
Bless: call for god’s reward.
 Form - The poem is written in the form of a Villanelle- a special form in English verse.
- 5 tercets (triplets)(5X3) + 4 lines(a quatrain) = 19 lines.
- It has a specific rhyme scheme that is: a b a in the triplet and a b a a in the Final quatrain.
- Above all, the 1st line in 1st tercet is repeated as line 3 in the 2nd and 4th tercets.
- Line 3 in 1st is repeated as the final line in stanza 3, 5, and 6.
- Two ending sounds: /ait/, /ei/
- The poem is given in a prose-like style, but some lines can keep the iambic beat. E.g. stanza1: iambic pentameter.

 Paraphrase
The poet speaks to his father in stanza1 and 6. In stanza2, 3, 4, 5, we have some examples about wise, honest, mad, and serious men.
The poem is written in a systematic way:
- No introduction(optional)
- Topic sentence(stanza1)
- In between, there are some examples(stanza2, 3, 4, 5)
- Conclusion (stanza6)1.
The son is asking his father to resist and stand against these moments of
weakness. He gives him a piece of advice, asking him to hold on to his life and to be furious when he is about to die. To the speaker, old people must be furious and attack death fiercely and strongly and above all, stick to this life.
2. Wise men, when about to die, know that death is right, inevitable and natural. They believe that their achievements cannot help the society enough to proceed forward. That is why they should stick to life. They should resist and stand against these moments of weakness when about to die.
3. Good and honest men want to live longer in order to set good examples for individuals in their society that is why they rage against their points of weakness.
4. Mad men are quite sad when they are about to die, they learn too late that they are about to leave the sunny side of life, never enjoyed before. Rather, they used to live in shade. They are furious and they stick to this life which they have lost all their life long.
5. Serious men, when about to die, come to realize very clearly that they could have lived a passionate life full of fun. This is why they are furious and hold on to this life when they are about to die.
6. Again, he is addressing his father who is in his bed-death. He is asking him to curse him out of jealousy (because the father is dead and the son is alive), and he is asking him to bless him due to his stance. This poem is a strong emotional appeal to show how much the son feared, respected, and deeply loved his father.

 Tones
- In stanza1 and 6, the tone is conversational, advisable and furious:
- Conversational as the son, who is the speaker, is addressing his father (the addressee).
- Advisable: the imperative verb in the negation (Go: Do not go) is used to express a piece of advice.
- Furious: as old people must be angry when they are about to die “rage”, “should burn” and “rave “.
- Disappointing tone: wise men find their deed not enough to help their society proceed forward.
- Sad tone: because honest men find their deeds not sufficient to make them good examples for others.
- Regretful tone: to reflect how mad men feel sorry for losing the sunny side of life, and for living in the shade for long.
- Hope-losing tone: serious men will be hopeless that they could have had a passionate life full of fun.

 Ideas
1. Resist your illness and fight it.
2. No one should give up his life without a fight.
3. People should set good examples for others.
4. Do your best to help the society in which you live.
5. Above all, don’t forget that life is delightful, joyful and precious.

Style
1. The use of enjambment.
2. The style is prose-like in spite of the fact that readers can trace some (te-tum) beat in stanza 1 and some other different lines.
3. The poet makes recourse to some mono-syllabic words “old age should burn and rave at …..”
4. The style is repetitive because complete lines are repeated regularly “do not go gentle into that good night”, “rage, rage against the dying of the light”.
5. The use of the imperative form to give a piece of advice.
6. Strange images are used to describe wise, honest, mad, and serious men (imp.).
7. The style is conversational because the son is speaking to his dead father as if he were present.
8. Sentences are given in the same word order. Themes
1. The son-father relationship
2. All of us must resist and stand against death.
3. Life is joyful, enjoyable, and precious.  Images
(Extract the figure of speech, explain it, and then explain the image)
The following is only the explanation of the images:

 Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Thomas uses the image of burning to represent the attitude that the old should have against losing their life
 Because their words had forked no lightning they
He uses the image of ‘their words had forked no lightening’ to mean that they hadn’t changed the world or made an impact.
 Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Thomas uses reeds dancing in a green bay to stand for the good influence their deeds might continue to have.

 And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Thomas uses a picture of the sun flying across the sky to stand for the energetic life of wild men.

 Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
He uses meteors to stand for fierce and outrageous enjoyment of life.

 Figures of speech

- Do not go gentle into that good night
Metaphor: death is compared to night
- Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Metaphor: life is compared to light.
- Their frail deeds
Personification: honest men’s deeds are personified is if they were dancers.
- Blind eyes
Simile: eyes full of passion and fun are similar to bodies coming from outer space.
- Sad height
Metaphor: his father’s sick-bed is compared to a sad height or a tomb.
- Curse, bless
Antithesis
- Paradox: clear contradiction: the speaker believes that old people at the moment of death can see what they were blind to all their life long.

- The use of contrast: life and death, night and light.

Music
1

1. The regular rhyme scheme of a villanelle which goes as aba, abaa.
2. The trace of the te-tum beat in stanza1 and some other lines.
3. Repetition of complete lines.
4. Alliteration: simple, piled, and crossed.
5. Sibilance
6. Assonance
7. Consonance