Analysis of Dirge For A Joker
Sylvia Plath 1932 (Boston) – 1963 (London)
Always in the middle of a kiss
Came the profane stimulus to cough;
Always from the pulpit during service
Leaned the devil prompting you to laugh.
Behind mock-ceremony of your grief
Lurked the burlesque instinct of the ham;
You never altered your amused belief
That life was a mere monumental sham.
From the comic accident of birth
To the final grotesque joke of death
Your malady of sacrilegious mirth
Spread gay contagion with each clever breath.
Now you must play the straight man for a term
And tolerate the humor of the worm.
Scheme | XXXX ABAB CDCD EE |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 10010101 100110011 110101010 101010111 011100111 100110101 1101010101 111010101 101010011 101001111 110010101 1101011101 1111011101 010010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 532 |
Words | 101 |
Sentences | 4 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 2 |
Lines Amount | 14 |
Letters per line (avg) | 31 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 108 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 23 |
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"Dirge For A Joker" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/154076/dirge-for-a-joker>.
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