A Satirical Elegy - Flash cards Notes.
How does Swift use Rhyming couplets in this Elegy? (A02)
-Rhyming couplets is common in eighteenth-century verse.
-Effective it satirical poetry, allows poet to make an observation in 1st line and give it a witty punchline in the second.
-The speakers voice tends to rise in the first line, then drop in the second, conveying certainty about conclusions being made.
-Rhyming couplets often used in Elegy’s, however they are usually heroic couplets (which are rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter).
-This poem is written in Iambic tetrameter, as if to make the point he is not a hero.
What form does the poem take, what does that contribute to the poem?
-An Elegy.
-Elegy’s are traditionally used as a tribute, not a denunciation of, someones character.
-Therefore Swifts choice of an Elegy is an ironic choice to frame his satire.
How is the theme of death and mutability prominent in this poem?
-Presents the idea that it is human folly to believe in permanence.
-death is presented as the greatest agent of change, death changes the general from a rich and powerful man, to a criminal or sorts for his crimes.
-His glory, and the glory of all men, is only transient.
-Swift compares those who enjoy glory to “bubbles”, bubbles can and do burst, so their form, like glory, is fleeting.
How is the theme of status and pride prominent in this poem?
-Swifts points out that the reputation if a public figure is a hollow achievement.
-Swift acknowledges that a well deserved reputation lives on as people remember them for doing great things.
-Swift, by writing this poem, is trying to deprive the duke of an undeserved legacy as a brave noble man.
What is the wider moral of this poem?
People need to consider their own insignificance as a part of the general human condition, and not succumb to the vanity or the sin of pride.
What is the tone of the poem?
-Ironic, mocking and scurrilous.
-Insults the general about his cause of death “old age” “in his bed”, and his age “could he indeed be so old”.
-Second Stanza: Tone shifts to a mock-crusading one, with an acidic aside aimed at the duke in the closing couplet.
-Shift in tone signalled by the threatening “come hither.”
-This tone asks the people in the dukes position to learn from his mistakes, but the tone also remains ironic as Swift knows this lesson will never be learnt.
“His Grace! Impossible! What dead! / Of Old age too, and in his bed!”
-Rhyming couplets used to make the satire more biting, observation in the first line is given a witty punch line in the second.
-Exclamatio set the tone of the poem as incredulous.
-Use of asyndeton to set the gossipy, scurrilous tone and combined with repeated exclamations makes the speaker sound exited about the news.
-Mock horror.
-Ironic, he was a warrior, should have died on battlefield.
-Made many die young, but he died old.
-Hyperbolic mock horror.
“Mighty warrior”,
“inglorious”
-Lexical field of war, to emphasize his role, and juxtapose it with the way he actually died.
-Adjective Mighty used to create irony.
-Inverts our expectations of elegy, which would usually speak of glory.
“And could that Mighty…”
“And so inglorious…”
-Anaphora used to emphasize the speaker’s readiness to run through the deceased multiple failings.
“Twas time in conscious he should die”
-Shocking.
-Conveys a tone of hostility towards the General.
“He left behind so great a stink.”
-Metaphorical of the controversies of his life and the destruction he left behind.
-Connotates unpleasant things, could be referring to the smell of his rotting corpse, double entendre.
Could be comical potty humor - last fart
“Nor widows sighs, Nor Orphans tears”
-Anaphora of ‘nor’ emphasizes the lack of mourners for him.
-Due to his warmongering, he would have created many Orphans and widows, so this is the speaker’s nod to those who suffered at his hand, who would not be sad to see him go.
“True to his profit and his pride,
He made them weep before he dy’d”
-Alliteration to emphasize the wealth he obtained due to the suffering of others.
-Suggests He cause enough pain when he was alive, due to previous lines, includes his friends as victims of his warmongering (which he profited from).
Stanza 2:
“Come hither; all ye empty things” (line 25) “Come hither and behold your fate.” (line 28)
-Anaphora of imperative command come hither, emphasize the threatening tone.
-Encouraging those in positions like the Generals to take the Generals fate as a warning and not to repeat his mistakes.
-Volta (shift in argument/ tone) becomes a didactic
“Bubbles rais’d by breath of kings;”
-Metaphor refers to those honored by the state who have little substance to them.
-Refers to the wealthy and powerful who overestimate the importance of their titles and decorations – none of that makes you anything in the afterlife. They are superficial.
-Swift compares those who enjoy glory to “bubbles”, bubbles can, and do, burst, so their form, like glory, is fleeting.
