Comparsion of Shakespare and Thomas

In the poems by Shakespeare and Thomas Dylan, "Sonnet 73", and “ Dot Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" , the main focus is death. Each poem has a different approach of how the subject death should be taken. Using metaphors Shakespeare relates death to Fall, Night, and fire. Whereas Thomas using form relates his feelings of death.

In the first quatrain of "Sonnet 73" death is presented along with the season of late Fall and early winter. He speaks of the how it is damp, cold and bare; how the leaves change color and late birds sang. In the second quatrain the speaker speaks about Twilight and how that shows the how ones life can go from being bright to dark in a moment. In the third he discuss how the fire in his life is being put out by its own ashes. He describes how the end of his has come and all that is left is the deathbed and awaits.

Shakespeare approach to death in the poem is that the addressee must accept his impending death and realize that he must live what’s left of his time. Using metaphors Shakespeare talks about death’s second self sleep, in this he relates to the addressee that death is inevitable and he is soon approaching the long sleep.

While on the other hand Thomas Dylan poem Do No Go Gentle Into That Good Night, is a completely different perspective of death to that of Shakespeare approach to death. Thomas writes his poem about his father approaching death in the form of a villanelle, which consist of a very specific rhyme scheme. In this poem he sticks to the specific rhyme scheme of aba, aba,… abaa, through out the poem repeating the fist and last line, which shows his frustrations of his father’s impending death.

In Thomas Dylan’s poem he feels that he father should fight against death. He discuss how wise, good, wild, and grave men have fought against “ that good night“, not because they didn’t know its was coming but because they were not readying to go and still had things to do here on earth. Which to him these people are what he has always believed his father to be until now. His is distraught at the thought that his own father is just laying there not fight to stay alive. He believes that if his father just fought against death maybe he could live a little longer. Through out the poem he is constantly pleading with his father to “ rage, rage against the dying of the light”.