Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1951

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Poetic Form and Structure

“Do not go gentle into that good night” is a villanelle. The villanelle is a strict poem form that consists of 19 lines—five tercets (or three-line stanzas) and one quatrain (or four-line stanza). Villanelles also feature a specific pattern of repetition: The first and third lines repeat themselves throughout the poem as dual refrain. This poem’s refrains are “Do not go gentle into that good night” (Line 1) and “Rage, rage against the dying of the light” (Line 3). Line 1 repeats itself as Line 6, 12, and 18. Line 3 repeats itself as Line 9, 15, and 19.

The poem’s refrain lines rhyme with each other, while the rest of the poem’s lines use their own repeating rhyme. The poem’s rhyme scheme is ABA ABA ABA ABA ABA ABAA.

Consonance, Assonance, and Alliteration

Thomas uses frequent sound devices, particularly relying on consonance and assonance. Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds that does not specifically occur at the beginning of words (unlike alliteration). Here, both refrains use the consonance of G sounds. Words with hard G sounds include go, good, against, and dying, while soft G sounds repeat with gentle and rage.

Assonance, the repeating of vowel sounds, appears in the long I sounds of refrain words night and light resonate in words like “dying” (Line 3), “wise” (Line 4), “crying” (Line 7), “Wild” (Line 10), and “blinding” (Line 13). Lines 2 and 3 also use assonance with long A sounds: “Old age should burn and rave at close of day; / Rage, rage [...].” Many other long A sounds recur: “wave” (Line 7), “sang” (Line 10), “late” (Line 11), “Grave” (Line 13), and “blaze” (Line 14).

Alliteration occurs in phrases like “sang the sun” (Line 10) and “Blind eyes could blaze” (Line 14).

Meter and Rhythm

The poem generally abides by iambic pentameter. Each iamb consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Each line consists of five iambs of two syllables each (ten syllables, or beats, in total). In the English language, iambic pentameter is commonly associated with the rhythm of conversational speech. A typical line in the poem scans like this (stressed syllables in bold):

Do not | go gen- | tle in- | to that | good night

Thomas varies the meter at each repetition of “Rage, rage” (Line 3), which is a spondee: a poetic foot of two stressed syllables.

Thomas also makes use of punctuation throughout the poem to slow down the rhythm, organize syntax, and emphasize key phrases. Most lines end with punctuation like commas and periods. On the other hand, in a technique called enjambment, Thomas spreads complete thoughts across two lines without a pause, giving them a breathless and rushed quality: For example, the unbroken rhythm of the lines “Because their words had forked no lightning they / Do not go gentle into that good night” (Lines 5-6) underscores the speaker’s urgency and heightened oratory. Finally, mid-line pauses (or caesuras) demarcate particularly important thoughts or asides. For instance, in the line “And you, my father, there on the sad height [...]” (Line 16), commas make a reader pause around the phrase “my father,” emphasizing the speaker’s turn toward more personal content.