The villanelle that I chose is called "Do not go gentle into that good night" by Dylan Thomas. You can find it, as well as an audio clip of it, here.
In a villanelle, there are nineteen lines divided into five tercets and one quatrain. The first and third lines of the first stanza rhyme and all the first lines of the subsequent stanzas rhyme with those as well. The first line of the first stanza becomes the last line of the second and fourth stanzas, and the third line of the first stanza becomes the last line of the third and fifth stanza and both conclude the last stanza. The second line of each stanza also rhymes.
This poem discusses death and the issue of accepting death. Overall, it is very pensive and mellow. Dylan uses caesura (a short pause within a line of poetry, often but not always signaled by punctuation) in almost ever stanza to give the poem a slow, calm feeling. He also refrains from using the actual word "death," instead using a euphemism (the substitution of an agreeable or less offensive expression in place of one that might offend or suggest something unpleasant), "night."
He does not want to induce the fear that the word "death" may cause, because although each group of people he speaks of shrinks from death, does "not go gentle into" it, and even "rage[s]" against it, it is more important to see why each group reacts the way it does to death. For example, the wise men, though they understand that "dark is right," that death is inevitable and must be faced, they resist it because "their words had forked no lightning." I took that to mean that they had not yet utilized their thoughts and intelligence to create or prove anything noteworthy and felt they needed more time to live up to their potential.
Comment on this, por favor.
Questions to consider:
How does Thomas characterize each group and their reaction to death?
How does the tone (mode of expression perhaps?) change when the poem shifts to the speaker's father?
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15 years ago
3 comments:
It seems that Dylan is almost mocking the first groups of people. He talks about the wise men and how although they know death is coming and inevitable, they still try to fight it when it arrives. However, his tone greatly changes when he shifts to his father. Now he is pleading with his father to fight against death and not simply accept it. With his father's impending death he realizes that death is not a simple thing, it's scary and no one wants it to come once it arrives.
I would almost have to disagree with you Kasey. While I don't believe there are any real shifts in Thomas' tone throughout the poem until the last stanza, I do not think it shifts in quite the same way you mentioned. His tone is uniform throughout the first five stanzas. I feel like he is almost reciting these from memory, as though they were a lesson learned in school. However, after the caesura at the end of stanza four, I think his tone shifts not too a more emotional one, but instead to a more somber one. Regardless of his learnings in life and knowledge of death, when it knocks on his father's doorstep the speaker can only recite what he knows. And in this reciting I would imagine a very melancholy tone full of regret from a son wishing he knew more he could do for his father. So, I kind of half-agree with you.
Yet, the phrases that are being repeated have a very different tone in the last stanza. Instead, he is pleading with his father to fight death, rage against it. In the earlier stanzas he is suprised by the resilience of these people to accept death. It's interesting.
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