Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
The Poem
The title of Thomas Gray’s “Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes” signals that the poem is to be read as a light satire. Because an ode is a serious lyric poem on a dignified subject in elevated language, and death is the subject of an elegy or a meditative poem of mourning, the very linking in the title of two high poetic types and a lowly animal signifies humorous intent.
Set in an elegant drawing room, the poem traces the demise of the pampered cat Selima. Reclining on the edge of the fishbowl, she stares admiringly at...
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