Sonnet and Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night Essay -- John Donne D

Sonnet and Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night how how the writer uses the form of poetry to protest against a situation or an attitude and reveal how successful you think he or she is. Sonnet & Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night. Sonnet by John Donne and Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas are two poems about death that seem to convey very different messages. These poems are obviously written by two men with two very different perceptions of death. Both poems are protest poems and challenge ideas that would have been instilled in the writers from an early age. Donne ,who was a priest, would have been brought up in a society where death was feared and at a time when there was much religious debate about where the "soul" goes after death but in his poem he writes that death has no reason to be "proud" because it is not so "mighty and dreadful" as people fear. This is an idea that contrasts greatly with Thomas' poem. Thomas was brought up in a strict religious environment and he would have been taught the ideas that are present in Donne's poem, that death is just the "soul's delivery" and would be like going to sleep , that death is not the end but simply a way on towards heaven . However, Thomas' poem contradicts this idea saying that death is something that everyone should "burn" and "rave" against, this poem shows a very angry and resentful conception of death. The idea behind both poems is that the authors are protesting against death, about how death is seen and how death is treated by people, as well as protesting against how they have been taught to treat death which makes these poems very powerful. Sonnet is written in the form of a sonnet which is ironic as this form ... ...assionate style of writing. This poem also uses imagery but not in the same way as Sonnet, it's images are not really for the reader to relate to, they are fantastic, they do not really seem real but that is the point, death to Thomas is something unknown and something to dread. Thomas' poem seems much more messy than Sonnet, it is contradictory and it is not easy for the reader to understand, they must study it in more depth to get an idea of what it is really about, this however only makes the poem more interesting and realistic because it seems to be straight from Thomas' mind , a jumble of thoughts that seems just to have spilled onto the page. These two poems are forms of protest and both authors have shown that poetry is an excellent way to speak out because these poems are persuasive and convincing arguments for both their very different views.