Dylan Thomas was a Welsh poet born in 1914 who is known for his poem "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night." He showed an early talent for poetry, writing drafts of his works as a teenager. Thomas struggled financially throughout his life and supported himself through jobs like the BBC while living with his wife Caitlin. His poems were meticulously constructed over many drafts using sound, imagery, and association. "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" uses a villanelle form and light/dark imagery to reinforce the theme of not accepting death passively.

1. Dylan Thomas
“Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”
Mrs. Skotnicki
April 4, 2013

2. Biography
"He seems to have reserved all of his
faculties for his poetry and to have
conducted his life as an afterthought.”
-Jacob Korg

3. The Early Years
• Born April 27, 1914
• Swansea, Wales, UK
• Father taught high
school English
• Neglected all studies
but English
• Left school at 16 after
dismal examination
results (Korg 1)
http://images.marinas.com/med_res_id/82038

4. Poetry Notebooks
• Thomas wrote drafts of
many of his most famous
poems when he was a
young adult, between
ages 15-19.
• Notebooks are now
housed in the Poetry
Collection at Lockwood
Library (Korg 2) .
http://www.facilities-
buffalo.org/files/FPD/building%20photos/north/lockwd/fpdlockwd.jpg

5. The Young Poet
• Described by his
contemporaries as "slight,
curly-haired, shy
provincial, an excellent
tapside mimic and wit,
[Thomas] was often seen
in pubs working over
exercise books of his
poems, with a glass of
beer beside him" (Korg 4).
http://www.internal.org/pictures/dt.gif

6. Early Genius
• Thomas’s later poems were more polished and
complex, and "compassionate," but "can only be
regarded as extensions of the highly original
poetic idiom he fashioned when, as a school-boy
and as a loose-ends juvenile reporter, he
neglected his duties in order to twist his private
discoveries of the paradoxes of existence into
arcane, eccentric, and highly organized verse.”
(Korg 3)

7. Caitlin McNamara
• Met in London pub in
1936
• Married, penniless, in
1937
• The poet struggled
financially for the rest of
his life
• Dependent upon friends
and family for support
(Korg 7)
http://ewelsh.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/dylan-thomas.jpg

8. BBC Radio
• Began radio work for
British Broadcasting
Corporation (BBC) in 1937
• Critics debate the effect
the job had on poetry
though some of his best
work was published
during this period (Korg
10)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/arts/sites/dylan-thomas/images/dylan-
thomas-bbc_01_446.jpg

9. The Boat House
• Laugharne, Wales
• First visited in 1937
• Returned between work
for BBC in London
• Eventually purchased for
Dylan and Caitlin by his
benefactor, Margaret
Taylor in 1949 (Korg 8-11)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/arts/sites/dylan-
thomas/images/laugharne_03_446.jpg

10. Thomas’s Study
http://www.infobritain.co.uk/Study_Shed_Laugharne.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Dylan_Thomas%27s_study_Laugharne.jpg
Each poem is the result of months and even years of work. For example, Thomas
composed over 200 drafts of the poem "Fern Hill" (Korg 6).

11. Systematic Verse
• At first glance Thomas's poems are
incomprehensible, "But it has since become clear
that each of his poems is an exhaustively
calculated construction" (Korg 6).
• Thomas would begin construction of a poem with
a phrase he found suggestive, "and then added to
it through links of sound, imagery, and
association" (Korg 6).
• Thomas knew from the outset the place the
"suggestive phrase" would occupy in the finished
poem (Korg 6).

12. Poem Analysis
“Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”

13. “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”
• Extended metaphor: Do not go gentle into
that good night
• Diction that establishes and reinforces
light/dark imagery
• Rhyme scheme and form (villanelle) that
keeps emotion tightly in check
• Sound to sense: rhyme scheme reinforces
meaning and theme

14. Works Cited
• Korg, Jacob. Dylan Thomas, Updated ed. New
York: Twayne Publishers, 1992. Twayne's
English Authors Series 20. Gale Virtual
Reference Library. Web. 4 Apr. 2013.
• Thomas, Dylan. The Collected Poems of Dylan
Thomas. New York: New Directions, 1957.
Print.