Summary Poem Analysis of 'On the Day of Judgement' by Jonathan Swift
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Course
Poetry
Institution
CIE
Here’s a full analysis of the poem ‘On the Day of Judgement’ by Jonathan Swift, tailored towards A-Level students but also suitable for those studying at a higher level.
Includes:
POEM
VOCABULARY
STORY / SUMMARY
SPEAKER / VOICE
LANGUAGE FEATURES
STRUCTURE / FORM
CONTEXT
ATTITUDES...
With a whirl of thought oppress'd,
I sunk from reverie to rest.
An horrid vision seized my head;
I saw the graves give up their dead!
Jove, arm'd with terrors, bursts the skies,
And thunder roars and lightning flies!
Amaz'd, confus'd, its fate unknown,
The world stands trembling at his throne!
While each pale sinner hung his head,
Jove, nodding, shook the heavens, and said:
"Offending race of human kind,
By nature, reason, learning, blind;
You who, through frailty, stepp'd aside;
And you, who never fell--through pride:
You who in different sects were shamm'd,
And come to see each other damn'd;
(So some folk told you, but they knew
No more of Jove's designs than you;)
--The world's mad business now is o'er,
And I resent these pranks no more.
--I to such blockheads set my wit!
I damn such fools!--Go, go, you're bit."
VOCABULARY
Whirl - a swirling, circling movement
Oppress’d - (oppressed), forced down into submission, made weaker by something
Vision - a dream or view in the imagination that reveals hopes, fears or prophecies
Jove - Jupiter, the Roman god of sky and thunder (known as Zeus in Greek Myth)
Arm’d with terrors - to be armed is to carry weapons, this phrase suggests that
‘terrors’ - terrifying things - are the weapons that Jove carries
Sinner - a person who commits crimes against their God or religion
Offending - causing offence or upset
, Reason - the mind’s ability to use logic to figure things out
Frailty - weakness
Sects - groups of people who have the same religious beliefs
Shamm’d - presented with or convinced of false truths (kind of like ‘scammed’)
O’er - over
Blockheads - idiots
Go on, you’re bit - an 18th century slang phrase meaning ‘get out of here, you’ve
been tricked and deceived’
STORY/SUMMARY
With his head beaten down by a swirling thought, the speaker sunk down from his
dreaming to rest. His mind was overtaken by a horrid vision: He saw dead people
emerging from graves. Jove burst open the skies, and he was ready to wage war on
earth, armed with terrors, causing thunder and lightning to break forth. The world
stands and watches, trembling - people are in shock and don’t know what to expect.
Each sinner turns pale and bows their head down in shame, while Jove looks at them
all and says “You, the offending race of humans, you’re blinded by your natures, your
logic, your education, because of weakness you stepped aside, and you were also
always consumed by pride. You were all tricked by your different religious groups, and
you’ve all come out on this day of judgement to see everyone else be damned to hell
as you thought you were right and they were all wrong. (So somebody told you, but
they didn’t know any better about who the real God was and his plans than you). The
world’s madness is over and I no longer will put up with the pranks of humans. I am
setting my mind against you all - I damn all you fools to hell - get out of here, you were
all tricked.’
SPEAKER/VOICE
The speaker uses first person narration and recounts a vision or epiphany that
suddenly comes to him at a point of weariness and exhaustion - he sees the world
ending, yet instead of the Christian God coming out of the clouds and taking the
good Christians to heaven, Jove - the Greek / Roman God appears and laughs at all
the humans, saying that for all their fighting and squabbling between religions and
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