Analysis of The Gods Are Dead
William Ernest Henley 1849 (Gloucester) – 1903 (Woking)
The gods are dead? Perhaps they are! Who knows?
Living at least in Lempriere undeleted,
The wise, the fair, the awful, the jocose,
Are one and all. I like to think, retreated
In some still land of lilacs and the rose.
Once high they sat, and high o’er earthly shows
With sacrificial dance and song were greeted.
Once… long ago. But now, the story goes,
The gods are dead.
It must be true. The world, a world of prose,
Full-crammed with facts, in science swathed and sheeted,
Nods in a stertorous after-dinner doze!
Plangent and sad, in every wind that blows
Who will may hear the sorry words repeated: –
‘The Gods are Dead!’
Scheme | ababa abaB abaabB |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 0111011111 1011011 010101001 11011111010 011111001 1111011101 1010101010 1101110101 0111 1111010111 1111010101 100110101 1010100111 11110101010 0111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 628 |
Words | 117 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 4, 6 |
Lines Amount | 15 |
Letters per line (avg) | 32 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 159 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 38 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 35 sec read
- 126 Views
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