An Author-Based Personal Response Essay of Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas

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Karyn McBurney Professor Cosentino ENG102 July 9, 2013 An Author-Based Personal Response Essay of Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas The world of poetry can be obscure, brimming with elusive allusions and elaborate allegories. The intended meaning is often a matter of debate with sharp distinctions drawn between the differing opinions of opposing camps. Some poems seem almost unintelligible unless one has familiarized oneself with an exhaustive biography of the author; others are so laden with symbolism it’s nearly impossible to see the forest for the trees. Still, something about poetry is irresistible: the depth of emotion, the rhythm and rhyme, the deft manipulation of ordinary words to produce a structure of extraordinary effect—one that has the power to speak to the reader’s own vicissitudes in life. The appeal can be an indefinable tug at one’s heart-strings or an unmistakable poke in the ribs; its charm lies in its compelling ability to have different meanings to different people, all of whom bring their own unique life experience to the interpretation and to whom its significance may change over time. So it is with the lyric poem “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night,” written in the spring of 1951 by Welsh-born poet Dylan Thomas as an elegy to his father, who was in declining health. The poem is fairly charged with emotion, with the speaker (not revealed to be first-person until the last stanza) exhorting the listener to fight against death and not give in. Although the setting is assumed to be the deathbed, Thomas uses powerful imagery of the sea and sky and chooses words that evoke a sense of movement; this, in turn, creates a sense of urgency and almost desperate energy. My research did not yield evidence as to whether Dylan presented the poem in person, reading it to his father, but Shmoop’s expresses an opinion on the

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