Poetic Devices and Tone

The charm of the poem lies in how a serious point is made through a light, playful style. Its tone is comic, satirical and ironic throughout, and it uses several devices to keep the story amusing.

Rhyming Couplets

The whole poem is written in rhyming couplets — pairs of successive lines that rhyme (an aa, bb, cc pattern), e.g. "In the city of which I sing / There was a just and placid King." This neat, sing-song form gives the tale the flavour of a nursery rhyme or a ballad, which makes its sharp mockery feel light-hearted and readable.

Irony

Irony — a gap between what seems true and what really happens — runs through the whole poem. The King is called "just" again and again, yet his "justice" is arbitrary and destructive; his search for a culprit ends in his own hanging. The sharpest example is the Ministers' cry: "Long live the King! The King is dead" — wishing long life to a King who has just been executed.

Satire

The poem is a satire — it uses humour to criticise. It mocks weak, arbitrary rulers who cannot make a fair decision, courtiers who flatter and shift blame, and a public so obsessed with its own comfort that it accepts a melon as King. The whole story is a comic exposure of foolish government.

Pun

Seth uses a neat pun (a play on a word's double meaning) when the King "nearly lost his head." This means both that he nearly lost his temper and that he very nearly became the one to be beheaded — which, in fact, he soon does.

Refrain / Repetition …