DON'T GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT, TRANSFORM AND ROLL OUT INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT.

*TURNS INTO A PLANE AND BOMBS THE HECK OUT OF THAT GOOD NIGHT*

SO, in case you NERDS *ADJUSTS TRANSFORMERS SNAPBACK* haven't realized it yet, I'm gonna be talking about our boy Dylan Thomas. (And totally not just because my group was the one to analyze his poem in class today/his poem is the easiest to analyze. Nope. Not at all. I am a senior and still have a great amount of work ethic. Totally.)

Basically, what a villanelle does is repeat two lines (or at least the same parts of two lines) throughout the entire poem. There's a lot more to its form and structure, but in general, what makes Thomas' version of the villanelle so strong is the repetition specifically, not the rhyme scheme or anything like that. The fact that the villanelle is inherently song like helps out, too, since it gets the reader into the sense of a rhythm - not to mention that songs tend to repeat themselves, and the repetition of certain lines (in this case, 'do not go gentle into that good night' and 'rage, rage against the dying of the light') feels like a chorus or a refrain.

Anyways, the message of this poem is fairly clear - don't let death take you without a fight. Battle 'til the very end to hold on to your last remaining scrap of life. However, there are other aspects involved as well. The middle stanzas address the ways in which various types of men - be they wise, good, wild, or grave - handle their impending passing. The heart of the poem, though, is directed at Thomas' dying father. His constant insistence to 'not go gentle into that good night' is both an urge for his father to fight for life for as long as possible, as well as consequently acting as a sort of solace for Thomas once his dad dies. If his father truly does 'rage, rage against the dying of the light', then Thomas will have a positive image of his dad to look back on. "At least he fought until the bitter end to stay alive," he can think, (in spite of dying himself a year after writing this poem) and be proud of his father's strength and tenacity in the face of his impending demise.

This added personal edge - which you would only know if you read the blurb before the poem in Jago - to Thomas' poem being about his own father makes the meaning all the more poignant. At first, I just read the poem without having read the blurb, and I just assumed that the 'father' referenced in the text was imaginary, and that the speaker was just an anonymous speaker, not Thomas himself. However, it's the fact that this poem ties directly into Thomas' life that really gives this poem its emotional punch. The use of the villanelle form and its constant repetition, not to mention Thomas' beautiful talent as a wordsmith, really emphasizes just how badly he wants his father to live. You get a taste of the desperation he feels to not lose a loved one - or at least, if he is going to lose a loved one, his final memories of them will be of courage and perseverance. The line about his dad's 'fierce tears' really gets to me. Just throwing that out there.

Basically, this poem rocks. Yeah.