Composition

For you to better grasp the poem “Do not go gentle into that good night” by Dylan Thomas, it is always a good idea to look at its outer and inner composition. 

Outer composition

“Do not go gentle into that good night” is a six stanza poem, in which the first line also functions as a title. Except for the last stanza, which is a quatrain made of four verses, all the others are comprised of only three lines, making up tercets. This type of poem is called villanelle. Apart from the stanza structure, a villanelle has also two refrains – line 1 and line 3 – which are repeated throughout the poem. In this case the refrains are: “Do not go gentle into that good night,” (l. 1, l. 6, l. 12, l. 18); “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” (l. 3, l. 9, l. 15, l. 19)

As a result, the poem is organised in five stanzas of three lines that rhyme alternatively – ABA – and a final quatrain that follows the rhyme pattern ABAA. Here is a tercet with alternate rhymes:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave ...