Poem Reflection: “Do not go gentle into that good night” by Dylan Thomas

The two main elements that are incorporated into this poem are rhyme and repetition.

The poem has a consistent rhyme throughout. All paragraphs of the poem minus the final one have only three lines. The first and final lines of each paragraph all end in words that rhyme, night rhyming with light, and so on using words that end in “ight”. The middle lines all end in a work with an “ay” sound such as day or they. Because of how these lines rhyme, this would make this poem into a closed poetic form.

The other element to this poem is its repetition. There are two lines that are repeated throughout the poem, “Do not go gentle into that good night” (the title of the poem), and “Rage, rage against the dying of the light”. One or the other is used in each of the paragraphs, sometimes both in the same paragraph.

The rhyming of the words matched with the repetition in the poem seem to want to make sure the reader remembers those lines. They have a very somber meaning to them, saying that death should not be greeted swiftly, that you should hang on to every breath and stay in the living. With the beginning line of the final paragraph ” And you, my father, there on the sad height”, it’s evident that the author is grieving and does not want to lose their father, hoping they cling to life. This is a sad poem, but within it is a push for strength and living the most in life.