An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog

Fiction | Poem | Middle Grade | Published in 1766

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Form and Meter

“An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog” maintains a consistent alternating pattern of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter. The first line contains eight syllables, the second line contains six, and so on accordingly. The rhyme scheme is abab, with simple, masculine rhymes like “sad” (Line 25) and “mad” (Line 27) at the end of each line. The poem’s narrative spans eight quatrains, with each stanza completing its one thought and sentence. With its simplistic rhyming structure, “wondrous short” (Line 3) length, humorous story and plot twists, and songlike meter and rhythm, Goldsmith’s poem incorporates many elements of ballad or even nursery rhyme style poetry.

Satire and Parody

Satire is a genre of poetry or prose that uses exaggerated or ludicrous humor to criticize something, like a particular person, society, group, or idea. Parody is closely related to and shares much in common with the satirical genre, although a parody typically mimics and satirizes another literary genre rather than a person or political idea. The purpose of “An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog” is hardly biting social commentary or political satire, but the poem does satirize or parody the genre of elegies.

Elegies are songs or poems which commemorate or lament someone’s death. Despite the poem being called an elegy, Goldsmith does not elegize or commemorate the dead “mad dog” as the title suggests he will. Instead, he spends the majority of the poem establishing the man’s character rather than the dog’s and eulogizing the man’s good qualities and “gentle heart” (Line 9), as if he were the one who died and not the dog. As such, Goldsmith’s poem deliberately subverts the concept and form of an elegy, commemorating the man who ultimately survives in order to deliver the poem’s twist ending and to highlight the man and neighbors’ disregard for the dog’s well-being.

Irony

A tool often used in satire, irony is perhaps the device most characteristic of Goldsmith’s writing style. In “An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog,” each of the speaker’s descriptions of the man contains some kind of verbal irony. Alluding to the biblical metaphor of Christian life as a race (Hebrews 12:1), the speaker notes of the man, “Still a godly race he ran, / Whenever he went to pray” (Lines 7-8). With this comment, the speaker literalizes the metaphorical race of one’s life as a physical race to make it to church on time, a race which the man does publically to gain attention and earn the good opinion of “the world” (Line 6). Similarly, the speaker alludes to the Christian principle of clothing the poor and naked (Luke 3:11, Isaiah 58:7) when he claims the man “clad” the “naked” (Line 11) every day “when he put on his clothes” (Line 12). Goldsmith uses verbal irony here to say one thing while meaning another; the speaker seemingly praises the man’s charity toward the poor while actually only stating that the man clothed himself. In each instance, Goldsmith’s verbal irony offers insight into the man’s true, selfish character and anticipates the ultimate outcome of the man’s poisonous nature.