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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), and is one of his best-known works.[1] Though first published in the journal Botteghe Oscure in 1951,[2] Thomas wrote the poem in 1947 while visiting Florence with his family. The poem was subsequently included, alongside other works by Thomas, in In Country Sleep, and Other Poems (New Directions, 1952)[1] and Collected Poems, 1934–1952 (Dent, 1952).[3] The poem entered the public domain on 1 January 2024.[4]
It has been suggested that the poem was written for Thomas's dying father, although he did not die until just before Christmas in 1952.[5][6] 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".
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Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
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 the 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.[7]
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The villanelle consists of five stanzas of three lines (tercets) followed by a single stanza of four lines (a quatrain) for a total of nineteen lines.[8] It is structured by two repeating rhymes and two refrains: the first line of the first stanza serves as the last line of the second and fourth stanzas, and the third line of the first stanza serves as the last line of the third and fifth stanzas.[8]
Summary
In the first stanza, the speaker encourages his 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, he proceeds 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 his father, whom he observes 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 are 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 more allusive in nature, and that it "clearly evokes both King Lear on the heath and Gloucester thinking he is at Dover Cliff."[11]
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Music
"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, which was written soon after Thomas's death and first performed in 1954.[12]
Other composers who set the poem to music include Vincent Persichetti (1976),[13] Elliot del Borgo (1979),[14] John Cale (1989, on Words for the Dying),[15] and Janet Owen Thomas (1999, in the final movement of her Under the Skin).[16] Additionally, the poem is read in full on Iggy Pop's album Free (2019).[17]
Art
"Do not go gentle into that good night" was the inspiration for three paintings by Swansea-born painter and printmaker Ceri Richards, who drew them in 1954, 1956, and 1965 respectively.[18]
Literature
The poem influenced the writing of Mircea Cărtărescu's novel Solenoid (2015).[19] A phrase from the poem, "dying of the light", has been used in the titles of George R. R. Martin's sci-fi novel Dying of the Light (1977) and a 2014 installment in Derek Landy's Skulduggery Pleasant series.[20]
Film
The poem is prominently referenced in Interstellar (2014), where the poem is used repeatedly by Michael Caine's character John Brand, as well as by several other supporting characters.[21] Additionally, the poem features in the plot of the films Back to School (1986) and Dangerous Minds (1995).
The poem is referenced in the Doctor Who episode The Shakespeare Code (2007). When the Tenth Doctor quotes the line "Rage, rage against the dying of the light", William Shakespeare responds that he might use that line himself, to which the Doctor responds "You can't. It's someone else's."[22]
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