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What is an allusion in "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night"?
Quick answer:
An allusion is an indirect reference to another person, place, event, or text, and while there is no obvious allusion in "Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night," there are a couple of possibilities. First, the poem could allude to Dylan Thomas's own experience of losing his father. Second, it could allude to Psalm 23, with the reference to the "sad height" which might overlook "the valley of the shadow of death" which Thomas's father approaches.
An allusion is when a text indirectly refers to a well-known person, event, place, or another text in order to add weight or meaning to its own purpose. For example, someone could say that video games are their Achilles's heel when it comes time to study, meaning that video games represent their area of weakness and that their best laid plans to study can be quickly undermined by an invitation to play. This allusion refers to the myth of Achilles, who was dipped into the river Styx by his mother when he was an infant, making him invulnerable except for his heel: the place where she held him by two fingers when she dunked him. By calling this weakness one's Achilles's heel, one indicates that they are utterly powerless when someone or something exploits that weakness. That's how an allusion typically works.
In the Dylan Thomas poem " Do Not...
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Go Gentle into That Good Night," there is not such an overt use of allusion. The poem is chock full of metaphors and similes, but no real obvious allusion. People generally read the poem as autobiographical in the sense that Thomas wrote it about his real father, who died not long before the poet himself passed away. Thus, though Thomas's personal experience is, perhaps, not well-known, the poem could allude to events in his real life. Alternately, some read the reference to the "sad height" in the final stanza as an allusion to Psalm 23, which refers to the "valley of the shadow of death": the "sad height" could then signify the moment just before one enters this valley, just before one dies, and this is evidently the time of life in which the speaker finds his father.
References
I am not sure whether you are interested in an allusion in "Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night" or are interested in allusion generally. As I read the poem, I see no allusions, although there are many other literary devices.
However, it is easy to create your own allusions. They can be references to books, movies, songs, or art. Here are some of my examples:
This sea voyage is not going well. There must be a Jonah on board.
This is an allusion to the Bible story of Jonah and the whale.
This responsibility is too much for me. I feel as though I have an albatross around my neck
This is an allusion to a great poem, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,' by Coleridge in which the albatross is hung around the neck of the man who shot it, as a punishment.
That man is a cheap Scrooge.
This is an allusion to Dickens' famous character in The Christmas Carol."
Climbing into this cave, I feel like I am looking for the Lost Ark.
This is an allusion to the first Indiana Jones movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Not only are there thousands of allusions in literature and in movies, we use them frequently in our everyday lives. See if you can come up with some, too!