Theme
Beyond tone, a poet's attitude toward his or her subject reveals to us a poem's theme. A theme is the author's main idea or message about the subject.
A great example of this is the poem "Do Not Go Gentle". The speaker of the poem talks about all the different types of men that "Do not go gentle into that good night." They "rage, rage against t of the light." The speaker talks about how all the men fight death and in the last stanza urges his father to fight death. The author's attitude toward fighting death helps demonstrate the theme that fighting death is imperative.
