Gentlemen of the night
Gentlemen of the nightGentlemen Of the Night
"Acquainted With the Night" and "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" are two poems about the night which contain desires, and it is readily said that these two poets offer easily accessible emotion in their verse. For Frost, his emotion was an attainable one because he didn't fill his life with what he considered to be mundane challenges. "The most pronounced instance where my life was influenced by this instinct was when I gave up my work at Harvard," said Frost. It was during the course of attending school that Frost learned that structure, school or otherwise, made him feel restraint to the point of being unable to complete things because they had to be done. In his life as in his poetry, Frost relied on the natural flow of things to control him. One of the most remarkable features of the poetry of Frost, is the manner in which he combines relatively straightforward accounts of ordinary experiences with subtle complexities of thought which, in turn, raise central philosophical issues of universal relevance to the human condition. He gives, in Shakespeare's phrase, a 'local habitation and a name' to these theoretical and even spiritual conceptions and dilemmas, at once making them accessible while never diminishing their significance.
Dylan Thomas' emotion was at times erratic…He used to say, of his poems, that they could be read either softly or loudly, exercising both ends of the spectrum. Thomas' poems were a very real part of his being, expressed throughout the verse. He said of his work, "I let, perhaps, an image be 'made' emotionally in me and then apply to it what intellectual and critical forces I possess..."There is also conveyed what the poet himself described as his "individual struggle from darkness towards some measure of light." This intensely personal quest is balanced, in his writing, by a dedication to the formalities and musicality of poetry unusual in twentieth-century verse.
Both poems possess intellectual, critical and emotional forces that have been harnessed to achieve a desired result, yet they are done in different ways. Frost's is in a natural, flowing narrative voice reading softly, almost passively and Thomas's dares to speak loudly of bold resistance. Interestingly enough, these two poems both draw on the power of the night to create opposite feelings, which eventually deliver that same effective, raw emotion.
The overall tone of "Acquainted..." is softly spoken. The narrator "walks in the rain-and back" then looks down the "saddest city lane." There isn't any indication of the slightest noise surrounding him in these endeavors save a cry, which occurs later. The mood is kept mellow and the softest point in the poem is when he "stood still and stopped the sound of feet." At this point the verse almost reaches a standstill as the feel slows down dramatically, signifying some heavy contemplation and emotion going on for the narrator.
I have been one acquainted with the night....
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