Fabienne Verrando
Mr. Peterson
College English 101, Period 2
21 October 2016
Compare and Contrast The poems “To an Athlete Dying Young” by Alfred Housman and “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” by Dylan Thomas have conflicting opinions on what to do when an individual reaches the point of lying on their deathbed. After reading both poems, one starts to ponder whether they should fight for their life or give in to the Grim Reaper’s kiss, given that death is inevitable. While these poems can be connected by a central theme, the methods and messages conveying the theme are radically different. Upon reading these two pieces, it becomes extremely evident that their thesis is death. Death is not anticipated by most youth, but when reading “To
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Alfred Housman wrote “To an Athlete Dying Young” as an elegy. An elegy is a poem in the form of elegiac couplets, written in honor of someone deceased (“Elegy”). Housman does exactly this by starting off the elegy regarding how the town congratulated the young athlete once they had won their race; “Man and boy stood cheering by, / And home we brought you shoulder-high” (Housman). While Housman uses this form to covey his message about death, Thomas takes a peculiar route by using a villanelle. This is an unusual writing style for this theme because a villanelle is “a dance song coupled with pastoral themes,” (“Villanello”) being derived from the word villanello in Latin. A villanelle is supposed to be light-hearted and gay. Thomas bends this form into a perfect irony, by having a writing style meant to be uplifting, to instead talk about death. You can see how Thomas implements this style since the first and third line are repeated within the opening stanza, are repeated alternately in the stanzas that come after it, and then are again seen together in the last two lines of the villanelle (“Villanello”). The two lines that Thomas uses for this are “Do not go gentle into that good night” (Thomas) and “Rage, rage against the dying of the light” (Thomas). While Housman uses the expected writing style, considering the topic, Thomas uses a writing style that can be …show more content…
Housman uses apostrophe, synecdoche, and metaphors to express his theme of the poem. An apostrophe is when the writer is referring to an imaginary character so that they can detach themselves from their writing (“Apostrophe”). The apostrophe is used throughout the entire poem when Housman addresses the deceased athlete, while omitting those exact words. In writing, a “synecdoche is a literary device in which part of something represents the whole or it may use a whole to represent a part” (“Synecdoche”). The synecdoche can be found when Housman says, “The fleet foot on the sill of shade” (line 22). In writing this, Housman meant that the foot represents the entire body, as how the dying athlete represents the large community of dying youth. Metaphors can also be found in many instances of this poem; such as in stanzas two through five, specifically when Housman states “Eyes the shady night has shut” (line 13). In this line, Housman is comparing night to death. In contrast, Thomas uses the literary devices of repetition, definition, and imagery to covey his message. Repetition is seen in every last line of Thomas’ piece, following the structure of the villanelle. “Rage, rage against the dying of the light” (line three, nine, 15, 19); this line is urging the men he is addressing in the poem to fight against death. This message can
In an excerpt from “In Cold Blood”, Truman Capote writes as an outside male voice irrelevant to the story, but has either visited or lived in the town of Holcomb. In this excerpt Capote utilized rhetoric to no only describe the town but also to characterize it in order to set a complete scene for the rest of the novel. Capote does this by adapting and forming diction, imagery, personification, similes, anaphora, metaphors, asyndeton, and alliteration to fully develop Holcomb not only as a town, but as a town that enjoys its isolation.
In the poem “To an Athlete Dying Young” the author uses rhyme to show the readers how the glory of the runner came and went in a dramatic way. By having rhyme in “To an Athlete Dying Young” it allows the irony in the poem and the meaning that poet A. E. Housman is trying to convey, really stick with the readers. In stanza three, “away” and “stay” and “grows” and “rose” make that stanza really stay put in the mind of the readers.
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.
Both poems have a propitious view of the theme of death. In “To An Athlete Dying Young” Houseman praises the young athlete for dying relatively young. He says “smart lad…not stay (9-10).” Houseman tells the athlete that he was smart to die at a young age because he can no longer witness his glory fade away as he gets older. His interpretation of death is very ironic. Many people consider it a tragedy when an athlete dies young because the athlete cannot further his career anymore, but Houseman argues that an athlete should not further his career because once he is old, he is a shell of his former self. By taking his life during a young age, the athlete gave himself eternal life in people’s mind. Moreover, in “Crossing The Bar”, Tennyson describes death as something people should not fear. Tennyson k...
A.E. Housman was a man of great opposites which means his poetry seems to be so very delicate and full of gentle regret, but he himself was a very hash self-disciplined man. He happened to write several poems and one of them is titled “To an Athlete Dying Young” which happens to talk about the advantages of dying young before an athlete’s glory does. This is a very sad topic to write on and gives an insight into the dreary life that Housman lived, but that is a topic for another day. However he did accomplish three messages in the poem “To an Athlete Dying You” like pride is important to an athlete, your people will take you to your home, and you will be able to die a very happy person.
Although the author wrote “Monday at the River” in conversation with “Saturday at the Border,” she did not maintain the same structure for her poem and particularly omitted the two additional stanzas. The omission of the two stanzas was intentionally done to demonstrate how a villanelle in its standard form should look. The narrator gives instruction to Caarruth’s narrator to ensure him that he too can write a “Proper Villanelle” (Murdakhayeva 19), one that follows the standard structure as opposed to a “Frail Villanelle” (Carruth 18), which deviates from the standard form of a villanelle. Furthermore, he suggests that Carruth’s narrator has the assets needed to write well he just needs the proper
To an Athlete Dying Young is a poem filled with many different elements that A.E Housman was able to spin into a telling of both sorrow and a kind of awkwarning in light of a death of a young star runner. The different literary elements made this poem come alive and made the connections more relevant for modern time.
We are all going to die. It is only a matter of how and when. Many people wish for a peaceful death in which it is as seamless as falling asleep. However, Dylan Thomas goes against this particular grain in “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night”. With the use of a defiant tone, repetition of critical lines, and provocative metaphors, Thomas implores individuals that they should not at any point give up despite death being imminent.
In the poem “To an Athlete Dying Young” they are first talking about how the young athlete defeats his opponents and brings the whole town joy as they carry him on their shoulders through the center of the town. Everyone was cheering for him and so proud to be apart of a town with a champion. But the next stanza shows a big change as they are carrying him in his casket through the town and everyone is quiet as they lay him down at his final resting place.The next stanza says that it was a good thing because he never felt that moment where the glory faded and he was just a regular guy. He won’t see the day he isn’t glorius and will never not be the town hero. He wont understand what its like for the old town heroes who lived beyond the glory
The two poems, “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night”, by Dylan Thomas and, “Because I Could Not Wait for Death”, by Emily Dickinson, we find two distinct treatments on the same theme, death. Although they both represent death, they also represent it as something other than death. Death brings about a variety of different feelings, because no two people feel the same way or believe the same thing. The fact that our faith is unknown makes the notion of death a common topic, as writers can make sense of their own feelings and emotions and in the process hope to make readers make sense of theirs too. Both Dickinson and Thomas are two well known and revered poets for their eloquent capture of these emotions. The poems both explore death and the
In his poem “To An Athlete Dying Young,” Housman contrasted the popular view of life. Humans always believe that every person’s life, in spite of struggles, sufferings, pains, and triumphs, must be lived to the fullest until old age and death claims us. However, Housman presented a different lens through the idea that dying young is better because a person will not experience the bitterness of his own downfall when fame and glory no longer smiles on him. The height and bliss of glory and the bitterness of death are the two main themes of the poem, supporting the poet’s belief that dying early is best for us.
Dylan Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” teaches an invaluable lesson to the reader early on in the poem: always struggle until your last breath. Through the use of the poetic form of villanelle, a nineteen-line poem with two repeating rhymes and two refrains, Thomas portrays the emotional struggle of a young man pleading with his father on his deathbed, exclaiming that he needs to cling on to life and not pass away without leaving an impact on society. Throughout the poem, he asserts that old men at the ends of their lives should resist death as strongly as they can, encouraging them to struggle and rage, infuriated that they have to die at all. Over the course of the poem, we discover the speaker holds a personal stake in the issue: his own father is dying. Upon further reflection, it is clear to the reader that the driving purpose behind the poem is that through so much
The structure of the poem is a villanelle. The villanelle comes from the French middle ages and is composed of nineteen lines. It has five tercets and a concluding quatrain: ABA-ABA-ABA-ABA-ABA-ABAA. Two different lines are repeated. Lines one, six, twelve, and eighteen are all the same. Line three reappears in line nine fifteen and nineteen. Each tercet will conclude with an exact or very close duplication of line one or three. The final quatrain repeats line one and three. The villanelle is one of the most difficult forms of poetry to follow. Perhaps Thomas wanted to use this form to show how special his father meant to him. Dylan Thomas speaks of death throughout this poem. Death is the major theme of the vil...
Who does not cower in fear upon the thought of death? Almost everybody does! However, people have differing views on the abstract idea of dying. In examining the poem "Because I Could Not Stop For Death? by Emily Dickinson and "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night? by Dylan Thomas, it is evident that the poets use contrasting and comparative techniques in their unique presentations of the concept of death. In the poem "Because I Could Not Stop For Death? Emily Dickinson presents the idea of acceptance of death, whereas in the poem "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night? Dylan Thomas presents the idea of refusal and opposition to death. Despite the differences in theme, these two poets both use similar figurative language devices, such as metaphors, personification and alliteration as they explore their contrasting ideas pertaining to the concept of death. Through the use of their same literacy techniques, both of the authors have presented two very different perceptions on death: Dickinson's message is acceptance whereas Thomas?is rejection.
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.