Dylan Thomas, more than anything, was a product of his time. He was born just at the end of World War I in Swansea, Wales. As Leslie Norris states, "no examination of his work can ignore the importance of his birthplace" because Swansea was representative of the kind of in-between life that Thomas led (Norris, 1). Growing up in the limbo between wars, in the English-speaking portion of Wales, in a time of poetic evolution all greatly influenced Thomas. As a result, he emerged as a poet not bound to the confines of structure or precedent. His father, a Welsh schoolteacher "instilled a profound love of books in Dylan," which marked in Thomas the beginning of a deep adoration for language and the pathos of words (Bittenbender, 1). His youth, complicated …show more content…
Thomas was not "an isolated phenomenon," but a key player in the "evolution of modern poetry" (Moore, 269). There was no clear or distinct style for Thomas to exist in, and as a result he attempted to create his own. Trying to deviate from the norm, Thomas style was constantly changing from anthology to anthology, as he tried to etch out a space for himself to exist. He tried to defy convention, and because of this, which leaves critics with an inability to compartmentalize or truly categorize Thomas. Though he was often grouped into modernism, his surrealist style also aligned him with a new kind of romanticism. Able to not only keep up with the ever-changing literature movements, Thomas was able to create a path for himself unlike any others of the time. According to Moore, Thomas was the "end product" of the different "stages in the development of a concept of literature," meaning that Thomas was preternatural in defiance of category (Moore, 275). As a poet, Dylan Thomas was one of the clearest embodiments of the time, at the height of his fame he was so widely mythologized and lauded, and he became a celebrity in the truest definition of the word. This did not come without its drawbacks however, and Thomas’s attempt to grapple with growing fame lead to poverty and alcoholism. Thomas's ingenuity quickly garnered a lot of public attention, he became a celebrity in his own right. …show more content…
Through the structure of the poem, Thomas was able to deliver a succinct yet passionate message to his father. Thomas's employment of the villanelle structure, five tercets and one final quatrain, "provided the framework" for Thomas, one in which he could create both a "character analysis" and an "expression of [Thomas's] love" for his father (Lord, 1067-1068). By nature, villanelles are formal. This makes Thomas's use of a villanelle symbolic, since he so often defied poetic norms structurally and stylistically. Seeing as the subject matter is so laden with emotion and very obviously personal to Thomas, the formality of the structure is significant. Each of the five tercets denotes a different topic, starting with a plea to "rage against the dying of the light," and going on to tell the stories of those who have prevailed in fighting against death ("Do Not Go" 3). Finally, the acute passion felt by Thomas is evident through the repetition that occurs throughout this poem. The ending of each stanza alternates between the phrases "rage, rage against the dying of the light," and "do not go gentle into that good night" ("Do Not Go" 3,6,9,12,15, 18,19). By repeating these lines, it is as if Thomas is pleading or begging the subject to ward off death. The continued use of these two phrases further the notion that Thomas is