Analysis of Why Should Not Old Men Be Mad?
William Butler Yeats 1865 (Sandymount) – 1939 (Menton)
WHY should not old men be mad?
Some have known a likely lad
That had a sound fly-fisher's wrist
Turn to a drunken journalist;
A girl that knew all Dante once
Live to bear children to a dunce;
A Helen of social welfare dream,
Climb on a wagonette to scream.
Some think it a matter of course that chance
Should starve good men and bad advance,
That if their neighbours figured plain,
As though upon a lighted screen,
No single story would they find
Of an unbroken happy mind,
A finish worthy of the start.
Young men know nothing of this sort,
Observant old men know it well;
And when they know what old books tell
And that no better can be had,
Know why an old man should be mad.
Scheme | AABCDDEEFFGHIIJKLLAA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (25%) Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 1111111 1110101 11011101 11010100 01111101 11110101 01011011 110111 1110101111 11110101 1111101 11010101 11010111 11010101 01010101 11110111 01011111 01111111 01110111 11111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 666 |
Words | 133 |
Sentences | 5 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 20 |
Lines Amount | 20 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 531 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 131 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 14, 2023
- 40 sec read
- 359 Views
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"Why Should Not Old Men Be Mad?" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/39626/why-should-not-old-men-be-mad%3F>.
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