ENGL 14O A Linguistic Approach on Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night

The text will be analyzed in four levels, which are: Level 1: level of phonology or graphology The poem follows the traditional way of writing poems which is following rules. The poem has six stanzas, all of which are tercets except from the last which is a quatrain. Every line in the poem is consists of ten syllables. Moreover, the poem follows a rhyming scheme which is a-b-a. For example is: Do not go gentle into that good night, (a) Old age should burn and rave at close of day; (b) Rage, rage against the dying of the light. (a) The most part of the text also have the phonological parallelism. That is, words in a line have same sounding syllables. For example: Stanza 1: Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Stanza 2: Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Stanza 3: Stanza 4: Stanza 5:

Stanza6: Level 2: level of lexis

One the major noticeable technique use by the writer is the repetition of lines. As we all can observe, the lines, Do not go gentle into that good night, and Rage, rage against the dying of the light repeatedly appear either at the start or end of the stanzas. Moreover, the author had also once used figure of speech which is simile, and that is blaze like meteors.

There is the occurrence of contrasting words throughout the text. And they are distributed in a way that every stanza may consist of at least one pair. The contrasting words are: gentlerage; lightning-dark; good-frail; sang-grieved; see-blind; curse-bless; go-against; and, night-light. In general usage, these words do not really contrast each other. But in the text, they do give a different feeling and attitude.

Level 3: level of syntax and grammar The way the lines were formed is like having multiple sentences added with a repeated line. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight and learn, too late, they grieved it on its way is already a sentence but it is use as two lines in a text which then is added with the repeated line do not go gentle into that good night. Furthermore, if these lines will be combined, then we will arrive at multiple compound sentences. The author, more often than not uses conjunctions like and, because and though. The sentences are in the form of declaration and imperative. The title was in the imperative form as well as the last line in the poem (before the repeated lines Do not go gentle into Rage, rage against the dying of the light) which is, Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray. On the other hand were declaratives such as, Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Level 4: level of semantics The whole text repeatedly talks about night, dark, dying of light, sun in flight, blinding sight, etc. These words can be associated with death. Therefore, the poem probably talks about dying or death itself. As one go along with the text, we will encounter the different kinds of men, the wise, good, wild and grave. If we try to relate this with death, we can say that death occurs not only to a single person, or should we say a single type of person. Because death is not only for the wild and grave, but also for the wise and good. In that case, death occurs to everyone living now, nobody can be spared not even the person the poet calls as father. Since the sentences are in the form of imperatives, we can assume that the poet wants something to be done, or not to be done. The poem calls for an action. And that can be reflected on the title itself:

do not go gentle into that good night. As I have said earlier, night can be associated with death; and the author does not want someone to be gentle with, but in contrast be violent about it. In this case, the author wants the person he is talking to be in battle with death, to fight death, or in simple terms not go to death or dying. Therefore, the speaker wants someone to live longer and not be in death in sooner time.

Prepared by: Marycon S. Pascual BSE IV English