Language and style

We will now address the language and the style of the poem “Do not go gentle into that good night” by Dylan Thomas and pinpoint some specific elements the author uses to enhance the overall lyrical qualities of the text.

Playing with the language

The poet plays with language in several ways in “Do not go gentle into that good night”. First of all, he is very metaphorical. Though he talks about the human death, he avoids mentioning it directly. Instead, he uses euphemisms and metaphors such as “that good night” (l. 1), “dying light” (l. 3) and “their end” (l. 4).

Secondly, he uses some unusual word combinations creating oxymoron and personifications. The “words had forked no lightning” (l. 5), the wild men “caught and sang the sun” (l. 10) and the father has “fierce tears” (l. 17).

Lastly, the word “grave” (l. 13) can refer to both serious and old people, but it also means funeral tomb.

All in all, the poem is highly symbolic and metaphorical, and the poet relies on a lot of wordplay to convey certain images.

Tense of the verbs

The poet uses a combination of present and past tenses in his poem together with conditionals and imperatives. The variety of tenses goes hand in hand with the various categories of people the poet mentions.

Verbs in the present tense simple like “learn” (l. 11) or “see” (l. 13) describe general situations, while “pray” (l. 17) refers to a present action of the speaker.

The past perfect simple “had forked no lightning” (l. 5) shows an action p...