The poem “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night”

The poem “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night”

The poem “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” is in the form of a villanelle, “a verse form consisting of nineteen lines divided into six stanzas–five tercets (three-line stanzas) and one quatrain (four-line stanza). The first and third lines of the fist tercet rhyme with each other, and this rhyme is repeated through each of the next four tercets and in the last two lines of the quatrain. The villanelle is also known for its repetition of select lines” . In other, less specific, words, it’s a very strict form. Poems that are written in such strict form as this usually use the structure to help convey the theme of the poem. We can actually look at the structure (or form) as another vehicle of expressing meaning, along with the topic and tone.

For your assignment, copy and paste the below poem in your Word and label the lines with their rhyme scheme (I’ve put the first few down for you so you have an example of how to do this).

Then establish who the speaker is talking to and what it is they are basically saying to that person. Once you’ve established that,

what do you think is the topic of the poem? The theme? Finally, how does the strict form seem to either reinforce or contradict the theme of the poem? If you still have room to address another question, do you have any further observations about the form? (There’s a cool pattern in the grammatical structure of the lines–think declarative versus imperative sentence structures.)

Write at least 200 words

A. Do not go gentle into that good night,
B. Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
A. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

A. Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
B. Because their words had forked no lightning they
A. Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Answer preview for The poem “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night”

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