Villanelles

Having read all three villanelles, I think that Dylan Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" best employs the form of a villanelle to convey it's message. The balanced repetition of a villanelle does a good job driving home Thomas's urging tone as he pleads his audience, through addressing several groups of people, to cling to life and not die quietly. He uses the second through fifth stanzas, the ones which all end in one of the two repeated lines, to figuratively address various characters and show that his message applies to everyone because it can apply to such diverse types of people. And he ends each pleading address by repeating one of the main themes: "Do not go gentle into that good night," and "rage, rage against the dying of the light." While this poem is not as lyrically flowing as the other two, its slightly-nonrhythmic pleading seems to further emphasize his urgent tone, along with the heavy repetition. The other two poems seem as if there is a more conscious effort made to match the form; "The Waking" even manages to maintain strict iambic pentameter. But in both the "The Waking" and "One Art," the message of the poem seems a bit confused because of this form. That's the main difference I see between these three poems: Thomas uses the villanelle tool for dramatic emphasis to support his message, while Roethke and Bishop seem to use the villanelle form as an impressive, sparkly add-on that showcases style over theme.