"'Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night' vs. 'Beowulf'"

“Do Not go Gentle into That Good Night” by Dylan Thomas is about facing old age and death with dignity, and accepting death by living life as though it will never end.


“Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” (Thomas)

Beowulf defied death many times throughout his youth fighting men and monsters alike, but his greatest display of bravery was exemplified in his old age.

“Old age should burn and rave at the close of day”. (Thomas)

Beowulf’s feats of strength in Hrothgar’s name were astounding. However, he was a strong young man at the time, and very capable. After a fifty-year reign over Geatland, being more of a figurehead than a warrior, and a very old man, Beowulf was not even close to the shape he was in when he defeated Grendel. Still, he faced the dragon, with the same amount of ferocity and strength of heart he had in his youth. Instead of sitting in his mead hall and sending young men to fight his battles, as even great Hrothgar did, he raged on.

Thomas goes on speak about how different types of men (wise, good, wild and grave) react to death.

“Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightening they

Do not go gentle into that good night.” (Thomas)

Beowulf knew that he was going to die if he fought the dragon. “The dark” called him, and he answered, but not without taking his enemy with him. He swore he would slay the dragon. Even though he was already mortally wounded, Beowulf delivered the deathblow. He would not let go until his word was kept.

“Good men, at the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have dance in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Beowulf in his youth was much like the wild men in the fourth stanza who

“Caught and sung the sun in the flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way.”

He was hearty and strong and fought as though death could not touch him, and the tales he spun about his conquests were so enthralling that it seemed as though he could sing the sun into flight. It seemed as though he didn’t give death much of a thought, even in old age, until he had his premonition.

“Learn, too late, they grieved it on its way.”

By the time he began to contemplate death, it was at his door.

In the last stanza, when it is made apparent that the narrator is speaking to his father, the image of Wiglaf at dying Beowulf’s side is brought to mind. Though, unlike the narrator in “Do Not go Gentle into that Good Night”, Wiglaf does not have to tell Beowulf to rage, for the great warrior was slain in the heat of the greatest battle of his life.