Inversion and rhyme

Four things about how 'A Funny Man' is put together:

1. Inversion. Read: "But never had I seen before / Such a funny sounding sight." That's not how we'd normally say it! Normal order: "But I had never seen such a funny sounding sight before." Poets sometimes change the word order to keep the rhythm. Every line has a beat, and normal order would break it, so the poet moves the words until they fit. That's inversion.

2. Form. The poem is in dialogue form (two people speak), not a monologue (one speaker). The funny man says, "Allow me to present Your Highness with a rose"; the speaker replies, "Well! I never saw a rose with such a funny looking smell"; and at the end, a question, and no answer.

3. Alliteration (from Unit 1): the same consonant sound at the start of words close together. "Sounding sight" repeats s; "hopped home" repeats h. Those are the phrases you remember, and the sound is part of why!

4. Repetition. The word funny comes in almost every stanza: funny kind of man, funny sounding sight, funny looking smell, funny feeling sound. Why?

Because it holds the poem together. The situations are all different (a hat, a bun, a song, a hop), and the repeated word tells you they're all the same joke. It also stops the poem explaining itself: the poet never says the man is mad or dreaming, only that he's funny.

So the tone is humorous and nonsensical: not confusing or worrying. The poem wants you to laugh, not to solve it.