Epitaph on John Adams, of Southwell

Epitaph on John Adams, of Southwell - form Summary

Epitaph as Comic Vehicle

This short epitaph uses its funerary form ironically: it reads like a memorial while delivering a comic punchline. Byron frames John Adams as a carrier whose name and trade are turned into a running pun on "carry," so the stanza’s refrains and tight rhyme drive the joke and the moral. The epitaph’s structure — brief, epigrammatic, and circular — turns remembrance into satire about excess and consequence.