An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog

“An Elegy on the Glory of Her Sex, Mrs. Mary Blaize” by Oliver Goldsmith (1759)

Another satirical elegy, “An Elegy on the Glory of Her Sex, Mrs. Mary Blaize” contains Goldsmith’s same sense of irony present in “An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog.” The poem elegizes the seemingly virtuous, Christian woman Mary Blaize, whose vices Goldsmith delights in satirizing. Mrs. Blaize’s fake charity and self-importance are notably similar to the supposedly pious and charitable man in “An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog.”

“A Satirical Elegy on the Death of a Late Famous General” by Jonathan Swift (1722)

An Anglo-Irish satirist and poet like Goldsmith, Jonathan Swift remains one of the most significant figures in the satirical genre, and his “A Satirical Elegy on the Death of a Late Famous General” bears several similarities to Goldsmith’s “An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog.” Swift elegizes the late general by ironically and repeatedly undermining him and his legacy and demonstrating the general’s cruelty, not unlike Goldsmith’s treatment of the “godly” man in his elegy.

“When Lovely Woman Stoops to Folly” by Oliver Goldsmith (1766)

While “When Lovely Woman Stoops to Folly” is more straightforward and less overtly ironic than “An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog,” the poem is still comedic and ironic in its original context. The poem initially debuted in The Vicar of Wakefield when the novel’s protagonist Dr. Primrose recites it to his fallen and destitute daughter Olivia to comfort and distract her from her dalliance with the womanizing Squire Thornhill. The poem’s hopeless conclusion that death is the only atonement for a woman’s shame would offer little consolation to a fallen woman like Olivia.