Week 2 Villanelle, Pantoum

The villanelle has 19 lines, 5 stanzas of three lines and 1 stanza of four lines with two rhymes and two refrains. The 1st, then the 3rd lines alternate as the last lines of stanzas 2,3,and 4, and then stanza 5 (the end) as a couplet. It is usually written in tetrameter (4 feet) or pentameter. The form is originally French and didn't appear in English until the later 1800's.

I selected a famous villanelle by Dylan Thomas' "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night." Thomas does not stray form the form and structure of the poem, it is an effective example of how villanelle repetition works.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night,

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night,

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

This poem clearly contrasts hte light versus dark theme present in many literary works. With the repeating lines "Do not go gentle into that good night" emphasizes the message of possible death or the unknown darkness that "night" symbolizes, and how to not easily slip into the darkess but rather pick a fight. The second line of repetition is "Rage, Rage, against the dying of the light" furthur emphasizes the fight for resistance of the darkness so "dying of the light" acts like a euphamism.

Throughout the poem's three stanzas death lurks heavily, as in each stanza there is a scenario of possible death and fall into darkness of a mysterious "man", where the subject is then reassured by one of the repeating lines. The poem then concludes in the quatrain where the speaker reassures his own father to fight and live on wiht both of the repeating lines to serve as the concluding couplet.