Dylan Thomas: More than just Do Not Go Gently into that Good Night

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“Do not go gently into that good night but rage, rage against the dying of the light.” –Dylan Thomas
Dylan Thomas wanted to entertain people more than anything with his work. He was passionate about performing his work on the BBC radio and performing it live in front of an audience. Dylan Thomas faced tragedies in his life and his sorrow is shown throughout different poems. In the end his most known poems “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” and “Death Shall Have No Dominion Over Me” illustrate the human spirit does not go on without a fight.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Dylan Thomas was born in Swansea, Glamorgan, Wales, on 27 October 1914. As a child he spent a large portion of his life in Swansea; however he did take trips to visit his maternal aunts’ Carmarthenshire farms. Carmarthenshire gave him inspiration for much of his work, especially his short stories, radio essays and the poem Fern Hill. Thomas suffered with illness as a child; he usually suffered from bronchitis or asthma. Thomas's formal education began at Mrs. Hole's Dame school, a private school which was situated a few streets away on Mirador Crescent (The Biography of Dylan Thomas).
In October 1925, Thomas attended the Swansea Grammar School. Thomas's first poem was published in the school's magazine; he later became the editor of the magazine. He began keeping poetry notebooks and collective 200 poems in four journals between 1930 and 1934. He left school at 16 to become a reporter for the local newspaper, the South Wales Daily Post, only to leave the job under pressure 18 months later in 1932 (The Biography of Dylan Thomas). Of the 90 poems he published, half were written during these first years. His highly praised first poetry volume, 18 Poems, was published on...

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... is what is important. That with God we can conquer death and we don’t go gentle into the night and that is a message worth sharing.

Works Cited

"The Biography of Dylan Thomas." Poemhunter.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Apr. 2014. .
"Dylan Thomas Biography." Bio.com. The Biography Channel Website, 2014. Web. 05 Apr. 2014. .
"Dylan Thomas." Dylan Thomas Com Is the Official Website about the Writer. City and County of Swansea, n.d. Web. 06 Apr. 2014. .
Maud, Ralph. Where Have the Old Words Got Me?: Explications of Dylan Thomas's Collected Poems. Montreal: McGill-Queen's UP, 2003. Print.
Yorke, Erin. "Poetry Analysis and Death Shall Have No Dominion by Dylan Thomas." Humanities 360. RR Donnelley, 17 May 2012. Web. 06 Apr. 2014.

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