A Description of a City Shower. by Jonathan Swift. Careful Observers may fortel the Hour (By sure Prognosticks) when to dread a Show'r: While Rain depends, the pensive Cat gives o'er Her Frolicks, and pursues her Tail no more. Returning Home at Night, you'll find the SinkSummary of 'A Description of a City Shower' Swift starts the poem by describing what happens before a storm arrives. For instance, he claims that cats will stop playing, and that the toilet would...summary of A Description Of A City Shower; central theme; idea of the verse; history of its creation; critical appreciation. Good luck in your poetry interpretation practice! Pay attention: the program cannot take into account all the numerous nuances of poetic technique while analyzing. We make no warranties of any kind, express or impliedA Description of a City Shower: By Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) CAREFUL observers may foretell the hour, (By sure prognostics,) when to dread a shower. While rain depends, the pensive cat gives o'er: Her frolics, and pursues her tail no more. Returning home at night, you'll find the sink: 5:'A Description of a City Shower' was written in 1710 by Jonathan Swift, a renowned Irish author of works like Gulliver's Travels and A Modest Proposal. His works like this one have made him popular among lovers of Neoclassicism - an artistic movement between the late-17th and 18th centuries noted for its imitation of Greco-Roman styles
Description of a City Shower: Summary & Analysis - Video
The fact that "A Description of a City Shower" is composed of heroic meters shows that it is a Neoclassical poem, for this type of verse was conservative and had a strict structure to follow. "A Description of a City Shower" contains many more characteristics of Neoclassicism such as that reason wins over emotion, imitation of the Greeks, knowledge of the classics, and finally a lesson for the readers."A Description of a City Shower" is a 1710 poem by Anglo-Irish poet Jonathan Swift. First appearing in the Tatler magazine in October of that same year, the poem was considered his best poem. Swift agreed: "They think 'tis the best thing I ever wrote, and I think so too". [1]A Description of a City Shower. by Jonathan Swift. Careful Observers may fortel the Hour (By sure Prognosticks) when to dread a Show'r: While Rain depends, the pensive Cat gives o'er Her Frolicks, and pursues her Tail no more. Returning Home at Night, you'll find the SinkJohnathan Swift's "A Description of a City Shower" (1710) is a satire on the physical and moral condition of Swift's contemporary London. In this poem, Swift uses the forms of both pastoral and
Poem Analysis of A Description Of A City Shower by
Sweepings from butchers' stalls, dung, guts, and blood, Drowned puppies, stinking sprats, all drenched in mud, Dead cats, and turnip tops, come tumbling down the flood. "A Description of A City Shower" by Jonathan Swift (1710) is in the public domain.In A Description of a City Shower, he responded to the then political changes of 1710 in the parliament of British government with the simple illustration of city shower. He reverses the traditional pastoral poetry and creates an anti-pastoral poem by choosing the busy urban city. He presents London just as it is with all its defects.A Description of a City Shower By Jonathan Swift About this Poet Anglo-Irish poet, satirist, essayist, and political pamphleteer Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin, Ireland. He spent much of his early adult life in England before returning to Dublin to serve as Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin for the last 30 years of his life...."A Description of a City Shower" perfectly fits the 18th-century approach in which poets sought to subvert the reader's traditional expectations of poetry. "DESCRIPTION OF A RELIGIOUS HOUSE" Richard Crashaw (1646) Known for his abundant descriptive excess, Richard Crashaw occasionally produced work not overburdened by hyperbole, as inJonathan Swift. "A Description of a City Shower" (1710) Headnote The poem was first published in the Tatler, no. 238 (17 Oct. 1710) and was reprinted in Pope and Swift's Miscellanies in Prose and Verse (1711), Miscellanies. The Last Volume ('1727' for 1728), and in The Works of J.S., D.D. (1735). The text used here is based on Works (1735).
Careful observers might foretell the hour
(By certain prognostics) when to dread a shower:
While rain depends, the pensive cat offers o'er
Her frolics, and pursues her tail not more.
Returning house at night, you'll in finding the sink
Strike your offended sense with double stink.
If you be sensible, then cross no longer a ways to dine;
You'll spend in coach hire greater than save in wine.
A coming shower your shooting corns presage,
Old achès throb, your hollow enamel will rage.
Sauntering in coffeehouse is Dulman observed;
He damns the local weather and complains of spleen.
Meanwhile the South, rising with dabbled wings,
A sable cloud athwart the welkin flings,
That swilled more liquor than it would comprise,
And, like a drunkard, offers it up again.
Brisk Susan whips her linen from the rope,
While the primary drizzling shower is born aslope:
Such is that sprinkling which some careless quean
Flirts on you from her mop, however not so blank:
You fly, invoke the gods; then turning, stop
To rail; she singing, still whirls on her mop.
Not yet the dust had kept away from the unequal strife,
But, aided through the wind, fought still for life,
And wafted with its foe by violent gust,
'Twas in doubt which was once rain and which used to be mud.
Ah! where should needy poet seek for help,
When dust and rain without delay his coat invade?
Sole coat, where mud cemented by means of the rain
Erects the nap, and leaves a mingled stain.
Now in contiguous drops the flood comes down,
Threatening with deluge this devoted the city.
To shops in crowds the daggled women fly,
Pretend to cheapen items, however not anything purchase.
The Templar spruce, whilst every spout's abroach,
Stays until 'tis honest, yet seems to name a coach.
The tucked-up sempstress walks with hasty strides,
While seams run down her oiled umbrella's facets.
Here more than a few kinds, by means of more than a few fortunes led,
Commence acquaintance underneath a shed.
Triumphant Tories and desponding Whigs
Forget their feuds, and sign up for to save their wigs.
Boxed in a chair the beau impatient sits,
While spouts run clattering o'er the roof by way of fits,
And ever and anon with frightful din
The leather-based sounds; he trembles from inside.
So when Troy chairmen bore the wood steed,
Pregnant with Greeks impatient to be freed
(Those bully Greeks, who, as the moderns do,
Instead of paying chairmen, run them thru),
Laocoön struck the out of doors with his spear,
And each imprisoned hero quaked for concern.
Now from all parts the swelling kennels drift,
And bear their trophies with them as they go:
Filth of all hues and odors seem to inform
What side road they sailed from, by means of their sight and odor.
They, as each torrent drives with rapid drive,
From Smithfield or St. Pulchre's form their course,
And in massive confluence joined at Snow Hill ridge,
Fall from the conduit vulnerable to Holborn Bridge.
Sweepings from butchers' stalls, dung, guts, and blood,
Drowned doggies, stinking sprats, all sopping wet in dust,
Dead cats, and turnip tops, come tumbling down the flood.
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