Comparison between Dylan Thomas's poem Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night and John Milton's poem When I consider how my light is spentDylan's poem Thomas "Do not go gentle into that good night" that good night" and John Milton's poem "When I consider how my light is spent" were written during difficult times in the respective poets' lives. Thomas had to deal with the death of his father ; Milton was facing the risk of becoming completely blind at the age of forty-three. As each poet struggles to deal with the crisis that occurs in his life, he makes a statement about the relationship between humanity and God, about the reasons why God gives. and then takes away certain gifts and about the correct way to live life. Thomas and Milton came to give conflicting answers to these fundamental questions about life. Poets' use of personal events in their lives as subject matter and their use of the personal pronouns “I” and “my” address possible questions about voice in both poems. . Since Thomas refers directly to "my father" (line 6) and Milton opens his poem with the line "When I consider how my light is spent" (1), the reader can, with a basic knowledge of the history of each poetry, reasonably assume that the poet and the speaker are interchangeable. Both Thomas and Milton chose to share their private thoughts on intensely personal matters with the world through their poems. Drawing on their own experiences, poets give these works a tone that resonates with the reader because they can connect the words of the poem with their own life. Thomas and Milton present contrasting visions of the relationship between humanity and God or the inevitable events of life. Thomas believes that humans have some degree of control; his father may not be able to live forever, bu...... middle of paper ...... different men at very different times in history, but both poets were grappling with difficult situations and trying to decide how they should react. Although their final conclusions are completely opposite, the raw emotion behind each poem resonates with the reader, regardless of whether the poem is 45 or 345 years old. The human struggle to understand life, regret, and why God gives and withholds certain gifts will continue as long as humanity exists; anyone considering these questions will come to their own personal conclusions just as Thomas and Milton did. Works Cited: Milton, John. “When I consider how my light is spent.” The Longman Anthology of British Literature: Compact Edition. Ed. David Damrosch. New York: Longman, 2000. Thomas, Dylan. “Do not go easy on that good night.” Literature and ourselves. Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers, 1997.