Dylan Thomas Understanding a poem is a matter of first and foremost understanding the poet. The individual poet's choice of words and emotions which grab the reader, make a connection, and then deliver an emotional message which leaves a lasting message can be achieved through a number of techniques. But the poet who achieves a lasting memory in the minds of hearts of his readers is a person who approached the

In "Do not go gentle into that good night," Thomas argues that "old age should burn and rave at close of day," implying that individuals should not give in to death easily (Thomas line 2). In order to prove his point, and convince his father to fight for his life, Thomas provides various examples of men from all walks of life, who regardless of their past fought to live

Thomas Hardy / Elizabeth Barrett Browning Considered purely as a poet, Thomas Hardy has earned the status of a Modernist, or at the very least an honorary Modernist. Claire Tomalin's recent biography of Hardy would have us believe that, in essence, Hardy had a full career as a late Victorian novelist, then retired, then was suddenly reborn as a craggy and philosophical Modernist poet, a latter-day Robert Browning for the age

Dylan Thomas's 1951 poem, "Do not go gentle into that good night," like Johnson's poem, is an elegy to someone he loves -- his father -- but unlike Johnson's poem, at the time the poem was written before his father passed away, which allows him to express and explain his fears to the man he wrote the poem for. In "Do not go gentle into that good night," Thomas urges

Death in Thomas and Dickinson In many ways, Dylan Thomas' "Do not go gentle into that good night" and Emily Dickinson's "Because I could not stop for death" are ideal texts to consider when attempting to examine human beings anxieties regarding death, dying, and the longing for permanence, because they make vastly different points in strikingly similar ways. That is to say, while they share some elements of form, style, and

Perez's poem speaks of the final memories of the dying person as she is in her hospital bed. "I remember your hands laying / at the side of your steel / bed, gnarled and twisted / like old oak trees" (Perez lines 8-11). These memories are painful for the speaker as is the memory of her funeral when she looked "stuffed / and painted like a swap meet /