My Featured Poem

The Owl and the Pussy Cat

by Edward Lear

The Owl and the Pussy Cat went to sea

In a beautiful pea-green boat,

They took some honey, and plenty of money

Wrapped up in a five-pound note.

The Owl looked up to the stars above,

And sang to a small guitar,

"O lovely Pussy, O Pussy, my love,

What a beautiful Pussy you are,

You are,

You are!

What a beautiful Pussy you are!"

Pussy said to the Owl, "You elegant fowl!

How charmingly sweet you sing!

O let us be married! too long we have tarried:

But what shall we do for a ring?"

They sailed away, for a year and a day,

To the land where the Bong-tree grows

And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood

With a ring at the end of his nose,

His nose,

His nose,

With a ring at the end of his nose.

"Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling

Your ring?" Said the Piggy, "I will."

So they took it away, and were married next day

By the Turkey who lives on the hill.

They dined on mince, and slices of quince,

Which they ate with a runcible spoon;

And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,

They danced by the light of the moon,

The moon,

The moon,

They danced by the light of the moon.

The Owl and the Pussy Cat

I. About the Poem

"The Owl and the Pussycat" features four anthropomorphic animals – an owl, a cat, a pig, and a turkey – and tells the story of the love between the title characters who marry in the land "where the Bong-tree grows".

The Owl and the Pussycat set out to sea in a pea green boat with honey and "plenty of money" wrapped in a five-pound note. The Owl serenades the Pussycat while gazing at the stars and strumming on a small guitar. He describes her as beautiful. The Pussycat responds by describing the Owl as an "elegant fowl" and compliments him on his singing. She urges they marry but they don't have a ring. They sail away for a year and a day to a land where Bong trees grow and discover a pig with a ring in his nose in a wood. They buy the ring for a shilling and are married the next day by a turkey. They dine on mince and quince using a "runcible spoon", then dance hand-in-hand on the sand in the moonlight.

Portions of an unfinished sequel, "The Children of the Owl and the Pussycat" were published first posthumously, during 1938. How the pair procreated is unspecified but the children are part fowl and part cat. All love to eat mice. The family live round places with weird names where their mother the cat died falling from a tall tree. The death caused their father, the owl, great sadness. The money is all spent but father still sings to the original guitar.

Works Cited （参考文献）

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/43188

https://translate.google.co.jp/translate?hl=ja&sl=en&u=https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/owl-and-pussy-cat&prev=search

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Owl_and_the_Pussycat

II. About the Author

Edward Lear (12 or 13 May 1812 – 29 January 1888) was an English artist, illustrator, musician, author and poet, and is known now mostly for his　literary nonsense in poetry and prose and especially his limericks, a form he popularised. His principal areas of work as an artist were threefold: as a draughtsman employed to illustrate birds and animals; making coloured drawings during his journeys, which he reworked later, sometimes as plates for his travel books; as a (minor) illustrator of Alfred Tennyson's poems. As an author, he is known principally for his popular nonsense collections of poems, songs, short stories, botanical drawings, recipes, and alphabets. He also composed and published twelve musical settings of Tennyson's poetry.

Works Cited （参考文献）

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Lear

IV. My Reaction

A. Reaction Point - Rhythm

• Rhythm is repeating the same sound.
• They took some honey, and plenty of money.
• I think that rhythm plays an important role to influence the impression of the poem.

B. Reaction Point - Repetition

• Repetition is to say the same sentence over and over again.
• What a beautiful Pussy you are(line 8 and 11)
• After I finished reading the poem, the rhythm did not come out of my body for a while. In this way, the repetition gives the reader a strong image.

C. Reaction Point - Symbol

• Symbol has the object and the temporal or spatial relationship.
• Owl : Their large human-like eyes are associated with intelligence and wisdom. The owl also tend to be quiet, solitary, relax and enjoy the leisure of life.
• I thought that giving familiarity to readers more easily by setting characters that make use of the characteristics of animals.

D. My General Opinion
Precisely because it is nonsense of poetry, ”The Owl and the Pussy” is my favorite poem to become a happy mood.　Learn more this poem and social background, I think I want to read both of the picture book of the English and Japanese versions. Also, since I usually play music, I understood the importance of rhythm, but I could recognize it again through poetry.