Do not go gentle into that good night
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"Do not go gentle into that good night" is a poem in the form of a villanelle by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (1914–1953); it has been described as his most famous work.[1] Though first published in the journal Botteghe Oscure in 1951,[2] the poem was written in 1947 while Thomas visited Florence with his family. Subsequent publication, along with other Thomas works, include In Country Sleep, And Other Poems (New Directions, 1952)[1] and Collected Poems, 1934–1952 (Dent, 1952).[3]
It has been suggested that the poem was written for Thomas's dying father, although he did not die until just before Christmas 1952.[4][5] It has no title other than its first line, "Do not go gentle into that good night", a line that appears as a refrain throughout the poem along with its other refrain, "Rage, rage against the dying of the light". The poem currently remains under copyright,[note 1] although the text is available online.[6]
Analysis
Summary
In the first stanza of "Do Not Go Gentle", the speaker encourages their father not to "go gentle into that good night" but rather to "rage, rage against the dying of the light." Then, in the subsequent stanzas, they proceed to list all manner of men, using terms such as "wise", "good", "wild", and "grave" as descriptors, who, in their own respective ways, embody the refrains of the poem. In the final stanza, the speaker implores their father, whom they observe upon a "sad height", begging him to "Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears", and reiterates the refrains once more.
Literary opinion
While this poem has inspired a significant amount of unique discussion and analysis from such critics as Seamus Heaney, Jonathan Westphal, and Walford Davies, some interpretations of the poem's meaning is under general consensus. "This is obviously a threshold poem about death",[9] Heaney writes, and Westphal agrees, noting that "[Thomas] is advocating active resistance to death."[10] Heaney thinks that the poem's structure as a villanelle "[turns] upon itself, advancing and retiring to and from a resolution"[9] in order to convey "a vivid figure of the union of opposites"[9] that encapsulates "the balance between natural grief and the recognition of necessity which pervades the poem as a whole."[9]
Westphal writes that the "sad height" Thomas refers to in line 16 is "of particular importance and interest in appreciating the poem as a whole."[10] He asserts that it was not a literal structure, such as a bier, not only because of the literal fact that Thomas' father died after the poem's publication, but also because "it would be pointless for Thomas to advise his father not to 'go gentle' if he were already dead …"[10] Instead, he thinks that Thomas' phrase refers to "a metaphorical plateau of aloneness and loneliness before death".[10] In his 2014 "Writers of Wales" biography of Thomas, Davies disagrees, instead believing that the imagery is in more allusive in nature, and that it "clearly evokes both King Lear on the heath and Gloucester thinking he is at Dover Cliff."[11]
Use and references in other works
"Do not go gentle into that good night" was used as the text for Igor Stravinsky's In Memoriam Dylan Thomas (Dirge-Canons and Song) for tenor and chamber ensemble (1954). The piece was written soon after Thomas's death and first performed in 1954.[12] It is the subject of a 1979 tone poem for wind ensemble by Elliot del Borgo,[13] was set to orchestral music by John Cale for his 1989 album Words for the Dying,[14] and is read in full by Iggy Pop as the ninth track on his 2019 album Free.[15]
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