To The Memory of Mr. Oldham

To The Memory of Mr. Oldham Literary Elements

Speaker or Narrator, and Point of View

The poem is written in the first person, and the speaker is a version of John Dryden himself.

Form and Meter

The poem is comprised of 25 lines of almost entirely heroic couplets, written in iambic pentameter with an AABBCC rhyme scheme.

Metaphors and Similes

The metaphor "Cast in the same poetic mould with mine" emphasizes the speaker's kinship with his subject.
The metaphor "Thy generous fruits, though gather'd ere their prime" links creative abundance to material and natural abundance, and suggests the impermanence of both.
The metaphor "Thy brows with ivy, and with laurels bound;" uses the conventional metaphorical meaning of these materials to suggest that Oldham's legacy is respected and beloved.

Alliteration and Assonance

Alliterative L sounds appear in "Farewell, too little and too lately known," while alliterative A's appear in "What could advancing age have added more?" and alliterative N's appear in "(what nature never gives the young)."

Irony

The line "The last set out the soonest did arrive" embodies a basic situational irony of the poem: that Oldham, though younger than the speaker, has reached the end of his life much sooner. Another, smaller irony concerns the components of good poetry. Dryden suggests that some aesthetic flaws may actually increase a poem's quality.

Genre

Elegy

Setting

This poem was written following John Oldham's death and takes place in eighteenth-century Britain

Tone

mournful, teasing, affectionate

Protagonist and Antagonist

The protagonist is Oldham himself, while time and mortality are arguably antagonists.

Major Conflict

The poem's conflict is the death of the poet John Oldham.

Climax

The speaker's final "hail and farewell" to Oldham is climactic.

Foreshadowing

N/A

Understatement

Dryden's teasing of Oldham over his poetic abilities is muted and understated, with light barbs like "It might (what nature never gives the young)/Have taught the numbers of thy native tongue."

Allusions

The lines "Thus Nisus fell upon the slippery place, While his young friend perform'd and won the race" are an allusion to Virgil's Aeneid. Marcellus was a Roman general and poet.

Metonymy and Synecdoche

The word "tongue" is a conventionalized metonymy in which the tongue stands in for language.

Personification

Age is personified as having "taught the numbers of thy native tongue."

Hyperbole

Descriptions of Dryden's similarity to Oldham, such as "And knaves and fools we both abhorr'd alike," hyperbolically describe their likeness.

Onomatopoeia

N/A

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