Comparing Dylan Thomas's poem Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night and John Milton's poem When I consider How My Light Is Spent
Dylan Thomas's poem "Do not go gentle into that good night" and John Milton's poem "When I consider how my light is spent" were written during times of trouble in their respective poet's life. Thomas was faced with losing his father to death; Milton was dealing with becoming completely blind at the age of forty-three. As each poet struggles to deal with the crisis occurring in his life, he makes a statement about the relationship between mankind and God, the reasons that God gives and then takes away certain gifts, and the proper way to live life. Thomas and Milton ended up with contrasting answers to these fundamental questions about life.
The poets' use of personal events in their lives as a topic and their use of the personal pronouns "I" and "my" resolve possible questions of voice in both poems. Because Thomas refers directly to "my father" (line 6) and Milton opens his poem with the line "When I consider how my light is spent" (1), the reader can, with some basic knowledge of the history of each poem, reasonably assume that the poet and the speaker are interchangeable. Both Thomas and Milton chose to share their private thoughts on intensely personal matters with the world through their poems. By drawing from their own experiences, the poets give these works a tone that resonates with the reader because he/she can connect the words of the poem with his/her own life.
Thomas and Milton present contrasting views of the relationship between mankind and God or the inevitable events of life. Thomas sees humans as having some degree of control; his father may not be able to live forever, bu...
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...erent men at very different points in history, but both poets were struggling with difficult situations and trying to decide how they should react. Although their final conclusions are completely opposite , the raw emotion behind each poem resonates with the reader whether the poem is 45 or 345 years old. The human struggle to understand life, regret, and why God gives and withholds certain gifts will continue as long as humanity exists; each person who considers these questions will come to his/her own personal conclusions just as Thomas and Milton did.
Works Cited:
Milton, John. "When I Consider How My Light Is Spent." The Longman Anthology of British Literature: Compact Edition. Ed. David Damrosch. New York: Longman, 2000.
Thomas, Dylan. “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.” Literature and Ourselves. Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers, 1997.
The poems “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley and “Do not go Gentle into that Good Night” by Dylan Thomas are very similar, yet have their differences. The poem “Invictus” was written to self motivate himself after he was in the hospital with tubercular arthritis. It was important to the poet to stay self motivated to get through the hard times. As the poet is having troubles with his physical health he is keeping and lifting his mental health by staying positive. In the poem “Do not go Gentle into that Good Night” the poet is telling a story about how a father is on his deathbed but his son won’t let him accept death and gives him motivation to stay alive for him.
Nonetheless, this sonnet greatly relates, as it wonderfully demonstrates, how individuals can change their perspectives. Knowing what one has or what one is capable of, better enables anyone to identify with oneself. Though Milton’s experience in finding himself does not provide him with a new love or appreciation for another individual, it more importantly offers him love for himself and his God. He learns to appreciate the art of patience and what he still has and uses it to make his existence worth while. Milton experiences a world in which half of his days are spent “in this dark world” (line 2), yet he continues to carry out his poetry writing - the “talent” (3) God has given him.
Holbrook, David. Dylan Thomas: The Code of Night. University of London: The Athlone Press, 1972. 196.
Paradise Lost is an epic poem portraying John Milton’s theological standpoints. The theme is knowledge and the fall of man. Milton uses his poem to state some of his theological beliefs and his personal reflections. Milton wrote Paradise Lost in the 17th century but uses influence from classic poets. Milton’s epic is an extremely important piece of literature. The excerpt used in this commentary takes on the subjects of sin and the punishment with regards to the atonement from God’s point of view. Milton’s states many of his own theological opinions but wants the reader to know that God is justified in everything that he does, and also wants them to know that man has free will.
Thomas' poem made more of an impact on me because it is so much more
When discussing the different aspects of New Criticism in Dylan Thomas’s poem “Do Not Go Gentle into The Good Night”, the impression that comes to mind is death. The use of imagery was a necessity for Dylan Thomas to express the different techniques of writing which involved a mixture of surrealistic and metaphysical tones. His ability to change a words meaning to incorporate symbolism is noticeable in circle of unity from life to death and renewed life.
Many people find it hard to imagine their death as there are so many questions to be answered-how will it happen, when, where and what comes next. The fact that our last days on Earth is unknown makes the topic of death a popular one for most poets who looks to seek out their own emotions. By them doing that it helps the reader make sense of their own emotions as well. In the two poems “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” by Emily Dickenson and “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” by Dylan Thomas, the poets are both capturing their emotion about death and the way that they accepted it. In Dickenson’s poem her feelings towards death are more passionate whereas in Dylan’s poem the feelings
There are two types of circulatory systems which are pulmonary and systemic. The pulmonary circuit takes the blood to the lungs to be oxygenated and then return to the heart. In the lungs, deoxygenated blood is removed and oxygen taken up through the haemoglobin in the red blood cells. The systemic circuit takes blood all over the body to supply the oxygen and deoxygenated blood back to the heart. Blood also takes nutrients and waste.
The highway system of the Circulatory System consists off a lot of one-way streets. The main routes used by the circulatory system are the veins and arteries. Veins are used to carry blood to the heart. Arteries then carry blood away from the heart. Most of the time, blood in the veins is blood where most of the oxygen and nutrients have already been delivered to the cells. This blood is called deoxygenated and is very dark red. Most of the time blood in the arteries is loaded with oxygen and nutrients and the color is very bright red. There is one artery that carries deoxygenated blood and there are some veins that carry oxygenated blood. In order to get more research on this I had to look up some information on the heart and lungs.
As the blood flows into the capillaries from the aorta, the oxygen rich blood coming from the heart gives away it’s nutrients, turning into oxygen poor blood as they flow back to the heart, eventually picking up nutrients in the lung capillaries again. Instead of going through the aorta, now they go through the superior (top) or inferior (bottom) vena cava, which like the aorta is very thick, however carries oxygen poor blood instead. When the blood arrives back to replenish their cells, that’s the equivalent of a literal lap around the circulatory system.
Carey, John. “Milton’s Satan.” The Cambridge Companion to Milton. Ed. Dennis Danielson. ???. 1989. 131-145. Print.
Confronted with the drowning of contemporary Cambridge student and fellow poet Edward King in 1637, John Milton faced the daunting subject of making sense of an existence that inevitably culminates in the ultimate destruction of human life. As M. H. Abrams states in his prefatory notes to Lycidas, Milton took part...
In conclusion, Paradise Lost can be seen through a historically contextual lens that allows us to see the parallels between Milton’s life and experiences during the reign of Charles I, and the predominant themes in his epic poem. Many of the themes in Paradise Lost, from the broader situational occurrences to the behavior of individual character’s and their attitudes toward the situations in which they find themselves can be seen as directly influenced by Milton’s time as a Parliamentarian in 17th century England.
Guibbory, Achsah. "Milton and English Poetry." A Companion to Milton. Thomas N. Corns, ed. Blackwell Publishing, 2003.
Frenchmen and Dutchmen. They were drawn to India for different reasons. Some were traders, others