3.3.7 Hyperbole

In hyperbole the poet is deliberately exaggerating a situation in order to make a point. For instance, Dylan Thomas in the lines below is confronted by the thought of his father's death. He outrageously tells his father not to take the moment of death meekly.

Example:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

(From Dylan Thomas' "Do not go gentle into that good night")
(In Seven Centuries of Poetry in English (1991). J. Leonard (Ed.). Melbourne: Oxford University Press.)

This exaggeration allows Thomas to give vent to very strong feelings he has about losing his father in death.