The Dong with a Luminous Noise Literary Elements

The omniscient third-person narrator exists outside the action.

Formless free verse with no regular meter.

The poem opens with metaphorical language situating: "When awful darkness and silence reign."

The second line introduces alliteration to highlight the wondrous quality of the fictional setting: "Over the great Gromboolian plain,"

n/a

Nonsense Poetry/Narrative Poetry

The poem is set within a somewhat detailed fictional world on the "Gromboolian plain."

Lighthearted yet melancholic.

Protagonist: The Dong. Antagonist: The Jumbly Girl.

The narrative tells the story of the consequences of the conflict at the heart of the tale: the Dong has fallen in love with the Jumbly Girl who has broken his heart by leaving the Gromboolian Plain with her seafaring people.

The story climaxes with the Jumbly Girl leaving the Dong behind to become completely brokenhearted and spend all his days looking for her.

The explanation for and description of the Dong's luminous nose is foreshadowed at the beginning of the second stanza: "Then, through the vast and gloomy dark, / There moves what seems a fiery spark,"

The poem is an exploration of the devastating long-term effects of a broken heart, but this idea is introduced in an understated manner: "Long years ago / The Dong was happy and gay, / Till he fell in love with a Jumbly Girl."

n/a

In "And those who watch at that midnight hour / From Hall or Terrace, or lofty Tower" the Hall, Terrace, and Tower are metonymic references to the entire population of the Gromboolian plain.

"When the angry breakers roar" is an example of personification by endowing the waves with human emotions.

Hyperbolic overstatement is used in the phrase "all night he goes" to describe the obsessive quality of the Dong's heartbroken search for Jumbly Girl.

n/a