In each of the poems there is only one person speaking which makes it more emotive as you experience all the emotions of one person. In Dylan Thomas’ poem there is a lot of anger about dying and he tells us not to accept Death lightly but to fight it, where as Christina Rossetti tries to convey the opposite by reversing the perspective she tells us that it is better to accept death because it is a part of life. The perspectives of the two poems are very different but each is effective in the context of the poem.
“Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” is a very powerful poem where Dylan Thomas is talking about the death of his father. He is telling his father to hang on and not to leave the light that is life. He tells him it is much more heroic to die fighting rather than to just let death take him. There is a lot of anger in the poem but this doesn’t come alive till the poem is read out loud and this is because they poem was written to be performed rather than read. It is a very emotive poem, which makes the reader feel a lot of anger as they experience the poet’s resentment.
“Sonnet” is a more relaxed poem where the writer has actually taken the part of a person dying and is telling people not to worry about their death but instead to remember what kind of person they were during their life. The writer tells us it is to late to do any thing about his or her death so we may as well accept it because death is part of everyone’s life any way and is therefore inevitable. After reading the poem I felt that it was written to be read rather than performed and holds much more meaning this way. It also makes you feel deeply but is much softer than Thomas’ poem and creates a very different mood. Whereas there is anger in Thomas’ poem, this poem is almost the opposite with the poet trying to calm and soothe a loved one and to help them except their death.
“Do Not Go Gentle” is arranged in six stanzas. The first five stanzas have three lines while the sixth stanza is a quatrain as it has four lines. “Sonnet” on the other hand is arranged in one large stanza containing fourteen lines. Thomas’ poem has quite a strict rhyming scheme reading A,B,A,A,B,A so each stanza reads A,B,A. Rossetti’s poem doesn’t have a set rhyming scheme but does make use of irregular rhyme to put across her point. Once again both are effective for the topic they are written about.
Thomas uses a lot of repetition in his poem to get his message across mainly of the lines “rage, rage against the dying of the light” and “do not go gentle into that good night” and I feel this works well because no matter what part of the poem you are reading he is always getting his message across. They are both very powerful, with thought provoking lines, which help create the poems’ mood. Dylan Thomas’ poem is very angry and uses powerful words such as rage and curse. These also add power to the poem. He uses a good many poetic devices such as similes and personification. These all add to the imagery of the poem, which is effective. Rossetti’s poem uses much softer words to convey her message, which also works because of the different message she is trying to get across. She uses repetition, mainly of the word ‘Remember’ which does help you to understand what she is trying to tell the reader.
I think Dylan Thomas set out to convey a message about not giving up on anything but especially not on and he certainly gets this point over meaning his poem is very successful. Christina Rossetti tries to get a very different message across and she’s trying to help people accept the death of people they loved. Her poem is also effective as it calms and tries to soothe the reader into accepting dying is a part of life and yes we may be sad but we have to learn to live with it, to accept it and to cope with it as life goes on.
Dylan Thomas’ poem made more of an impact on me because it is so much more powerful and I can feel the atmosphere he creates. Also I agree with how he feels and what his poem says which always helps when trying to create an impact. I like the narrator’s perspective in Thomas’ poem, which is effective in enabling me to empathise with him.
