Do Not Go Gentle Into Tha It's Worth A Thousand Words

Some of the poems Emily Dickinson wrote, usually offered many different views of death that involve physical and emotional responses of the soul and body’s journey through nothingness, madness and even eternity. The greatness in her poems comes from the use of literary devices to give meaning to death and the different interpretations of the journey through death. Although Dickinson presents contradicting thoughts sometimes, it is clear that she believes that there are many types of deaths in a human being’s life. This paper compares and contrasts the theme of death in Dickinson’s three poems titled “I heard a fly buzz”, "Because I Could Not Stop for Death” and “After great pain a Formal Feeling Comes”.

Two literary pieces, “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” by, Dylan Thomas and “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” by, Emily Dickinson are both poems that discuss the topic of death. While there are some similarities and comparisons between the two poems, when it comes to the themes, both poets writing styles are quite different from one another which makes each poem unique. Thomas and Dickinson both use identical figurative language devices and other literature symbolisms as they explain their main themes which contrasts the differences to the concept of death. These distinct variations between poems are apparent in both the form, and how the choice of words is used in the poems. Both of the authors have presented two very different ideas on death. The poems are well distinguished literature devices, they share minor similarities and differences between each other and how they present the meaning of death to a toll.

How does Emily Dickenson give definition to the ultimate experiences of life in “After great pain, a formal feeling comes”, and “Because I could not stop for Death”? “After great pain, a formal feeling comes” and “Because I could not stop for Death” by Emily Dickenson are poems which convey abstract ideas. In “After great pain, a formal feeling comes” (AGP), the speaker describes the long suffering of psychological pain, while the speaker in “Because I could not stop for Death” (BIC) is deceased, and recounts the very moment she passed away. Both of Dickenson’s poems use diction and imagery to convey a similar theme, and thus give definition to profound ultimate experiences of life: pain and death.

Death is a controversial and sensitive subject. When discussing death, several questions come to mind about what happens in our afterlife, such as: where do you go and what do you see? Emily Dickinson is a poet who explores her curiosity of death and the afterlife through her creative writing ability. She displays different views on death by writing two contrasting poems: one of a softer side and another of a more ridged and scary side. When looking at dissimilar observations of death it can be seen how private and special it is; it is also understood that death is inevitable so coping with it can be taken in different ways. Emily Dickinson’s poems “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” and “I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died” show both

The poems “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” by Dylan Thomas and “To an Athlete Dying Young” by A. E. Housman both discuss how each author views death. But, both poems have drastically different opinions upon the matter. Thomas in “Do Not Go Gentle” is full despair and hatred towards death, and is tries to convince his father not to accept death. Whereas, Housman in “To an Athlete” expresses that a young death is beautiful and glorious. That a young death shouldn’t be just seen as sad, but more as honorable.

Death. Although it's a natural, necessary part of existence, it is such a tremendous topic that can be viewed from a massive number of angles - religion, philosophy and science. But, what really matters in addition to what was mentioned before is our point of view on life and how we’ll deal with our struggles. Are we going to survive? Will we ever lose hope and give up? The poets Emily Dickinson and Peter Porter achieved excellent conflicting prospects and viewpoints of this in their poems “Because I Could Not Stop For Death” and “A Consumer’s Report”, through the use of language, structure and varying poetic devices that I am going to analyse in this essay.

Unlike many believe, a poem is not defined or restrained by rules of structure for poetry is more than a simple structure or rhyme patter of those are just used to give huge meaning and not necessary to portray what the authors are seeing in their mind. Richard Wilbur’s poem, “Year’s End,” is rich in imagery and symbolism that gives us a vivid image of different ways to look at death. Wilbur depicts how the volcanic eruption as if it were a gentle snow fall and the fate of the people Pompeii as a tender sleep and nothing more. With these images, Wilbur gives us imagery that give depth, segments of time that are frozen the moment between life and death. Wilbur also introduces the symbolic meaning of “cold” and its connection to the end of life

Everyone will die one day. It is a true, but unpleasant fact. Since death is therefore universal, it is easy to understand why a theme of death occurs so often in films and literature. Poetry is no exception to this trend. Poetry is filled with references to death or dying, as death is one of the most significant human conditions. A number of poets in particular have used death frequently in their writing. Emily Dickinson and Dylan Thomas are two of those poets. Emily Dickinson was born in 1830 and lived in Massachusetts. Much of her work had strong themes of death and it is believed now that she was depressed. Her poetry consists mostly of slant rhyme or near rhyme, which is seen in her famous poem “Because I could not stop for Death”. Dylan Thomas was born in 1914 and was from South Wales. He struggled with alcoholism for much of his life. When he wrote his famous poem “Do not go gentle into that good night” his father was in the midst of a battle with cancer and it is believed the poem is about his father. These two poems both have a theme of death and explore human mortality, however each poet has a different approach to this theme.

Whenever reading a poem you can never really understand what the poem is trying to portray. To understand the poem, most often it needs to be read multiple times. When reading any poem, paying close attention to the grammar and rhyme schemes plays an important part in the understanding. In this essay I will be comparing the poem writing by Dylan Thomas, “Do not go gentle into that good night” and Andrew Hudgins “Elegy for My Father, Who Is Not Dead”. These two poems can be found in our lecture book Thinking and Writing about Literature (T.W.L). Both poems focus on their fathers, as their lives come closer to their death. Even though both poems are centered around the death of their fathers, the poets have two different meanings of death.

My interpretation of the two poems, “And Death Shall Have No Dominion’ and ‘Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night’ by Dylan Thomas, significantly align with the view that there is an inherent tension between life and death which is explored through imagery in Dylan Thomas’ poetry. This is because of the ideas explored in the poems, death should have no dominion/control/authority and that death is the fate of all humans. Dylan Thomas illustrates these ideas by using poetic techniques, including imagery. To a significant extent, my interpretation of the poem ‘

Who does not cower in fear upon the thought of death? Almost everybody does! However, people have differing views on the abstract idea of dying. In examining the poem "Because I Could Not Stop For Death? by Emily Dickinson and "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night? by Dylan Thomas, it is evident that the poets use contrasting and comparative techniques in their unique presentations of the concept of death. In the poem "Because I Could Not Stop For Death? Emily Dickinson presents the idea of acceptance of death, whereas in the poem "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night? Dylan Thomas presents the idea of refusal and opposition to death. Despite the differences in theme, these two poets both use similar figurative language devices, such as

Dylan Thomas, a poet famous for writing about death, contracted pneumonia and continued living his life as he had before he had fallen ill. When he finally succumbed to his sickness and was left in a coma, he remained living for so long before he died that his wife supposedly said to the doctors, “Is the bloody man dead yet?” (Hopton). Thomas was just following his own advice he included in his poem “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night,” in which he establishes the theme of resisting death. In this poem, Thomas uses the poetic elements of repetition, tone, and figurative language to convey his theme.

People would not want to hear that their loved ones merely gave up and died passively. This poem in itself is a celebration of life, the poem is not only about death but it is an affirmation of life. To further emphasise the points being made Dylan Thomas utilises a wide range of literary devices. Parallelism is used from lines seven to fifteen to juxtapose the different attitudes of the so called “genres” of men at their death. This is used to outline that if you continuously lead one set type of lifestyle whether it is as a “wild man”, a “grave man” or a “good man” you will not be satisfied when your time comes to die. The only true way to be satisfied is to live a life of balance; only with a good contrast can you be at peace.

There are several ways to consider death. Some, as seen in Rupert Brooke’s 1915 poem “The Soldier”, choose to accept it, almost revel in it. Others, as evidenced in Dylan Thomas’ “Do not go gentle into that good night” (1952), fight and reject it. While these poems similarly center on death, more accurately the rebellion against it; both poems are written from opposite ends of the spectrum.

In this essay, we will talk about 3 poems which talk about death. The form and tone in which these poems depict death, however, may be different. The first poem we will talk about is ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’ written by Dylan Thomas. The poet says that old men should try to resist death to the best they can. They should not die quietly and should depart from this world shouting and screaming, angry about the fact that they have to face death. When this poem is about to end, we find that the poet is a personal stakeholder in this event as his beloved father is dying. The second poem is ‘To an athlete dying young’ written by A.E. Housman. As the title of this poem depicts, it is about an athlete who dies at a young age. This poem takes a joyous start by remembering the win of the athlete in a big race and celebrations that followed thereafter. But as the poem progresses, it starts talking about the death of the athlete and the concept of mortality. Finally, the poet gives some good arguments in the favour of dying when a person is young. The third poem is ‘The world is too much with us’ by William Wordsworth. Here, the poet complains that this world is really overwhelming for us to be able to appreciate it. We humans are always concerned with collecting things so that there is nothing in nature that we can’t own. This poem stresses on the opinion that we should appreciate the beautiful events that nature gives us a chance to