Analysis of Tract by William Carlos Williams
The poem “Tract” by William Carlos Williams, on the surface, is a criticism of an ostentatious funeral (Geddes 37). However, the poem does have a strong hidden message. “Tract” could very well be a direct criticism of Dylan Thomas’ “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”(Geddes 123) and any other poem like it. In his poem, William Carlos Williams criticizes poets like Thomas for using too many stylistic formalities, thereby obscuring their poetry’s true literal content. He also scolds them for placing themselves into the poetry when, in his view, there really is no place for them there. Finally, he ends with an offering of recourse for all the poets like Thomas.
On the surface, the narrator in “Tract” is criticizing an overly ornate funeral. His purpose is to establish a new idiom in which cultural inhibitions are discarded. This purpose can also be applied to the poems’ hidden meaning; a criticism of Dylan Thomas’ work. When the narrator refers to his “townspeople,” what Williams might be implying is “my fellow poets.” He is addressing a small community; the poets of the world, and in this case, Dylan Thomas.
In Dylan Thomas’ “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night,” there is a very distinctive structure of repeated lines and rhythms called a villanelle (Shaeffer). William Carlos Williams’ poem strives to do away with such convention. His “design for a hearse” is really a design for a poem, which should be “not black- nor white and not polished…[but] weathered like a farm wagon- with gilt wheels.” With this, Williams might be saying that there should be no specific design; we should not have villanelles. This corresponds with his philosophy to reject poetic forma...
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According to William Carlos Williams, Dylan Thomas injects pretence into his poetry to obscure its meaning and disguise it as something that it is not. He also inserts his identity into his poetry. “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” is therefore, in the eyes of William Carlos Williams, a great example of how not to write a poem.
Work Cited
Geddes, Gary. 20th Century Poetry & Poetics: Fourth Edition
Oxford University Press. Toronto, 1996
Dylan Thomas. Carmen Smith. thinkquest.org 11/15/2000.
*http://library.thinkquest.org/3187/thomas.html*
William C. Williams. Poets.org. 11/15/2000
*http://www.poets.org/poets.cfm?prmID=120 *
Rage, Rage. Frank Beck. Poets.org. 11/15/2000
* http://www.poets.org/poets.cfm?prmID=1159 *
Do Not Go…. Peter Shaeffer. 11/15/2000
*http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/38.html*
Dylan Thomas' "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" and Catherine Davis' "After a Time" demand comparison: Davis' poem was written in deliberate response to Thomas'. Davis assumes the reader's familiarity with "Do Not Go Gentle," which she uses to articulate her contrasting ideas. "After a Time," although it is a literary work in its own right, might even be thought of as serious parody--perhaps the greatest compliment one writer can pay another.
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.
Williams uses dry and subtle words such as “car”, “coffee”, or even plain “water” to create this powerful and foreboding poem which is interpreted pessimistically after getting past the tedious words. Its implicit meaning can be hard to grasp because it is deeply embedded into the poem and also implies the opposite of what we are taught as humans; we grow up with plans, goals, desires too, and Williams opens the reader’s eyes to explain the pointlessness of it all. Williams writes this poem knowing he will contradict everything people learn to do starting from a young age. In spite of this, it may inspire readers to stop worrying about the small things and focus on the grand scheme, maybe get them “wanting to love beyond this meat and bone,” despite its adverse meaning (21). Ultimately, the author subduedly goes against the ideal rules of life and allows the reader to interpret it however they want- either explicitly understand that it is normal for humans to want thing, not want things, and be wanted, or implicitly understand that there is no point in investing in our desires, for when we die, our goals- both the finished and unfinished- will not matter in the
Dylan Thomas wrote the poem “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.” It is about a son’s plea to his father who is approaching death. Two lines are repeated in the poem and addressed directly to the father. These lines structure the first stanza and collaborate as a couplet in the last. They are repeated a lot but each time, they have different meanings: statements, pleas, commands, or petitions. Repetition and rhyme scheme are parts of prosody in poetry. The rhyme scheme is built on two rhymes and forms of a pattern. The two rhymes are night and day and the pattern is aba, and in the last stanza, abaa. Even though the poem seems to have too much repetition, the fascinating imagery is more important and readers pay more attention to that instead.
Thomas, Dylan. “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.” Poemhunter.com. n.p. n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2014.
John Hollander’s poem, “By the Sound,” emulates the description Strand and Boland set forth to classify a villanelle poem. Besides following the strict structural guidelines of the villanelle, the content of “By the Sound” also follows the villanelle standard. Strand and Boland explain, “…the form refuses to tell a story. It circles around and around, refusing to go forward in any kind of linear development” (8). When “By the Sound” is examined in regards to a story, the poem’s linear development does not get beyond the setting. …” The poem starts: “Dawn rolled up slowly what the night unwound” (Hollander 1). The reader learns the time of the poem’s story is dawn. The last line of the first stanza provides place: “That was when I was living by the sound” (3). It establishes time and place in the first stanza, but like the circular motion of a villanelle, each stanza never moves beyond morning time at the sound but only conveys a little more about “dawn.” The first stanza comments on the sound of dawn with “…gulls shrieked violently…” (2). The second stanza explains the ref...
In today’s modern view, poetry has become more than just paragraphs that rhyme at the end of each sentence. If the reader has an open mind and the ability to read in between the lines, they discover more than they have bargained for. Some poems might have stories of suffering or abuse, while others contain happy times and great joy. Regardless of what the poems contains, all poems display an expression. That very moment when the writer begins his mental journey with that pen and paper is where all feelings are let out. As poetry is continues to be written, the reader begins to see patterns within each poem. On the other hand, poems have nothing at all in common with one another. A good example of this is in two poems by a famous writer by the name of Langston Hughes. A well-known writer that still gets credit today for pomes like “ Theme for English B” and “Let American be American Again.”
During the poem the speaker does not address his readers. The readers are simply overhearing a man assessing the society in which he lives as he daydreams about what is could be and yet what it is not. It is evident that his goal is to get the readers to look down upon this society which is so caught up in daily routine; prohibiting anyone from having freedom of imagination. This detachment that is created between the speaker and his readers incorporated with the boring monotone at the very beginning of the poem gives the readers a negative impression of the society before they begin to analyze the actual words of the poem.
Williams’ minimalist writing style employed free verse and by maintaining simplicity allowed the wheelbarrow to be the center of attention. He accomplished this task by breaking up the poem, which consisted of one sentence, into eight lines and further divided it into couplets. The beginning line of each couplet was longer than the second line, which only had one word. This formation allowed the reader to focus on specific words before moving to the next line. This is best illustrated in the opening lines, “so much depends/upon,” (Williams 288). Already, Williams has established the importance of the object by conveying to the reader that many things are dependent on the object. It is also significant that none of the words in the poem are capitalized nor did Williams
Dylan Thomas sets the tone of his iconic poem with the title, which is also one of the recurring lines in the poem. When the speaker says “Do not go gentle into that good night”(1,6,12,18), he is saying that you should not peacefully accept death. In most cases, many people would consider a peaceful death as good of a death as there can be, but Thomas urges the reader to not accept it. While it may seem like an odd stance, one must consider that towards the end of the poem we learn the speaker is speaking to his father. In context of the poem, this is someone struggling to accept that his father is dying therefore he is begging his father to also not accept it. Another way Dylan Thomas is able to not only reinforce the defiant tone, but also reinforce the central message, is his repetition of critical
"Do Not Go Gentle" is an emotional plea to Dylan's aging father to stay alive and fight death, without altering his individualism. In other words, Dylan wants his father to take his life into his own hands and control his own destiny. "Rage, rage against the dying of the light" (Thomas 2570), a line that is repeated throughout the poem, best su...
..., the content and form has self-deconstructed, resulting in a meaningless reduction/manifestation of repetition. The primary focus of the poem on the death and memory of a man has been sacrificed, leaving only the skeletal membrane of any sort of focus in the poem. The “Dirge” which initially was meant to reflect on the life of the individual has been completely abstracted. The “Dirge” the reader is left with at the end of the poem is one meant for anyone and no one. Just as the internal contradictions in Kenneth Fearing’s poem have eliminated the substantial significance of each isolated concern, the reader is left without not only a resolution, but any particular tangible meaning at all. The form and content of this poem have quite effectively established a powerful modernist statement, ironically contingent on the absence and not the presence of meaning in life.
Struggle to Cope with Death in Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night Poetry requires more than just a verse. It must appeal to your mind and generate emotion. It should be constructed in a way that appears simple, yet is intricate in every detail. Dylan Thomas's poem, Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night is a brilliant poem that appears so simple, yet upon looking closer its complexity can be seen. Dylan Thomas was born on October 27, 1914 in Swansea, Wales.
looks at the time and how the poet's father has lack of control of the
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.