Analysis of Sililoquy On Death

James Shirley 1596 (London) – 1666 (London)



I have not lived
After the rate to fear another world.
We come from nothing into life, a time
We measure with a short breath, and that often
Made tedious, too, with our own cares that fill it;
Which, like so many atoms in a sunbeam,
But crowd and jostle one another. All,
From the adored purple to the haircloth,
Must centre in a shade; and they that have
Their virtues to wait on them, bravely mock
The rugged storms that so much fright them here,
When their soul's launch'd by death into a sea
That's ever calm.


Scheme ABCDEFGHIJKLM
Poetic Form
Metre 1111 1001110101 1111001101 11010110110 1100111011111 1111010001 1101010101 100110101 1100010111 1101111101 0101111111 1111110101 1101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 511
Words 100
Sentences 4
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 13
Lines Amount 13
Letters per line (avg) 31
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 398
Words per stanza (avg) 98
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

30 sec read
97

James Shirley

James Shirley (or Sherley) was an English dramatist. He belonged to the great period of English dramatic literature, but, in Charles Lamb's words, he "claims a place among the worthies of this period, not so much for any transcendent genius in himself, as that he was the last of a great race, all of whom spoke nearly the same language and had a set of moral feelings and notions in common." His career of play writing extended from 1625 to the suppression of stage plays by Parliament in 1642. more…

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