Compare The Way In Which "Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes" by Thomas Gray and "London" by John Dryden Present A Sense Of Tragedy In Their Poems.

Authors Avatar

Compare and Contrast The Way In Which Gray and Dryden Present A Sense Of Tragedy In Their Poems.

        Both the poems differ by a hundred years, but the style and language is very similar. Dryden’s poem is much more serious and talks about an actually quite serious point. Gray’s poem on the other hand is much more designed to be mock heroic using very elevated, serious language for a trivial meaning.

        Dryden’s poem uses iambic pentameter with all the lines but one being end –stopped. This forces a slower, solemn reading which emphasises the grimness of the poem. Throughout the poem he uses a lot of death imagery such as “A dismal picture”, “Haunting” and “murder’d men”. Also in each verse there is a definite feel of displacement with such lines as “To a last lodging call their wand‘ring friends.” The author of this poem conveys the feeling of a widely spread tragedy rather than a personal one like the other poem. “A dismal picture of the gen’ral doom.”

        In the first verse of Dryden’s poem he uses a metaphor to present another death image, “And half unready with their bodies come.” This is implying that their bodies are being readied for death almost. In the second verse the writer writes from the point of view of someone, whose house is still intact, having trouble sleeping because they are worried that their house will be next to burn down, “Their short uneasie sleeps are broke with care, to look how near their own destruction tends.”. The idea of displacement is present here again when the writer writes, “Those who have none sit round where once it was, and with full eyes each wonted room require:” This idea of people whose houses have burnt down walking around wondering what to do with themselves. These people who have lost all hope and all material possessions just sit where once their house was and imagine where each room used to be.

Join now!

        “Some stir up coals and watch the Vestal fire,” This is a parody of fire, as a normal fire should be contained in a house yet this fire has taken over the whole of London. Later on in that verse it talks of the struggle in order to get out of the way of the fire and no matter which way the fleeing people turn they cannot “shun” the fire. “And, while through the burning Lab’rinths they retire, with loathing eyes repeat what they should shun.” The author compares the blazing streets of London to a Labyrinth. This elevates the ...

This is a preview of the whole essay