Poems are like objects; they come in a variety of shapes and forms. For the most part the form of the poem is its overall structure. Two very complex forms for poems are the Villanelle and the Sestina. The Villanelle is considered a “fixed form” being that it can be categorized by the patterns of its lines, meter, rhymes and stanzas. The Sestina is also considered a “fixed form”, like the Villanelle, but a little more challenging than the Villanelle and also does not rhyme. Examples of the villanelle and sestina forms are Dylan Thomas’ “Do not go gentle into that good night” and Elizabeth Bishop’s “Sestina”.
Dylan Thomas’ “Do not go gentle into that good night” consists of six stanzas, …show more content…
Thomas uses words such as “rage”, “dying”, “burn” and “rave” to convey his emotions. Thomas repeats line one, “Do not go gentle into that good night; and line three, “Rage, rage against the dying of the light” (688, lines 1, 3) throughout his poem. These two lines best describe the way Dylan Thomas feels toward the end of his father’s life. Dylan Thomas repeats both lines one and three, throughout his poem, giving the poem’s theme and meaning more emphasis. The reader is reminded the importance of the authors true feelings of death. Thomas uses metaphors for death throughout his poem. “Do not go gentle into that good night”, “good night” being death; and “dying of the light”, meaning the “light”, in other words life being burnt …show more content…
But unlike the villanelle, the rhyming scheme of the sestina is difficult. The sestina requires the repetition of six words at the end of the first stanza’s lines to the end ends of the lines in the other six-line stanzas. Elizabeth Bishop uses this complexity in her poem, “Sestina”. She repeats the words “house, “grandmother”, “child”, “stove”, “almanac” and “tears”, the ending words of each line of the first stanza as the end of every line in the other stanzas. Although sestina’s usually do not rhyme, the repetition of the words almost give it a rhyming effect. Elizabeth Bishop also uses the last word of the last line of the stanza as the last word in first line of the next stanza giving it the smoothness and lets the poem flow