Dylan Thomas’s villanelle named “Do Not Go Gentle In To That Good Night” is an instance of valuable, from a psychoanalytical point of view, piece of literature. The work contains deep and meaningful imagery, which contributes to the dismal but fascinating atmosphere created. Potentially, this work evidences the presence of solid feelings hidden, which indicates the necessity to examine the villanelle through the psychoanalytical criticism theory lens.
This form of analysis can assist in creating a correct insight into unconscious desires or anxieties the author expressed in his work, as every piece is the reflection of the writer’s inner neuroses. Therefore, there is a necessity to implement the method to correlate the provided, by the author, meaning of the piece with details of his life path and psychological wellbeing during the writing process.
The literature critics also implement the psychoanalytical criticism theory to access the latent affections, emotions, and wishes, which was guiding the author in creating the piece. Thus, Steve Johnson, the critic, shows in his analysis the multiply implementations of the mentioned methods through relating particular lines’ meanings to Dylan Thomas’s life circumstances (2017). It enables to reveal the rationale behind the first impression from the villanelle correctly. This approach is used by other critics as well and is part of my analysis.
This essay will examine the villanelle “Do Not Go Gentle In To That Good Night” using psychoanalytical literary criticism to argue the ulterior reasons, which underline the hidden and apparent piece’s motives. Moreover, the other researches’ critical approaches will be considered, in block style compare/contrast form, and the discussion regarding to what extent my and other literary critics’ analyses coincide with each other will be provided.
Works Cited
Academy of American Poets. “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas – Poems.” Academy of American Poets. Web.
Cyr, Marc D. “Dylan Thomas’s ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’: Trough ‘Lapis Lazuli’ to King Lear. Papers on Language & Literature, vol. 34, no. 2, 1998, pp. 207-217. Gale Literature Resource Center. Web.
Edwards, Jonathan. “’Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night’: Dylan Thomas and the Art of Dying.” The Use of English, vol. 67, no. 3, 2016, pp.71-78. Web.
Heaney, Seamus. “Dylan the Durable? On Dylan Thomas.” Salmagundi, no. 100, 1993, pp. 66–85. JSTOR. Web.
Johnson, Steve. Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas: Analysis – CourseBB. Web.
Oz, Fahri. “Apotheosis of Mortal Man: Stellar and Terrestrial Imagery in Dylan Thomas’s Poetry.” Gaziantep University Journal of Social Sciences, vol. 15, no. 4. 2016, pp. 1044–53. JSTOR. Web.
Tahir, Maha, and Amir Rabi. “Investigating Mukarovsky’s Structuralist Aesthetics in the Translations of Dylan Thomas’ “Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines” and “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.” Sixth Scientific Conference at Al-Qadisiya University, 2008.