Analysis of On Exaggerated Deference To Foreign Literary Opinion
William Watson 1858 (Burley in Wharfedale) – 1935 (Rottingdean)
What! and shall _we_, with such submissive airs
As age demands in reverence from the young,
Await these crumbs of praise from Europe flung,
And doubt of our own greatness till it bears
The signet of your Goethes or Voltaires?
We who alone in latter times have sung
With scarce less power than Arno's exiled tongue--
We who are Milton's kindred, Shakespeare's heirs.
The prize of lyric victory who shall gain
If ours be not the laurel, ours the palm?
More than the froth and flotsam of the Seine,
More than your Hugo-flare against the night,
And more than Weimar's proud elaborate calm,
One flash of Byron's lightning, Wordsworth's light.
Scheme | ABBAABBACDEFDF |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1011110101 11010100101 0111111101 01110110111 01011111 1101010111 111101111 11111011 01110100111 110110101001 11010101010 1111010101 011110101 111101011 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 632 |
Words | 112 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 14 |
Lines Amount | 14 |
Letters per line (avg) | 36 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 505 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 110 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 35 sec read
- 31 Views
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"On Exaggerated Deference To Foreign Literary Opinion" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/42014/on-exaggerated-deference-to-foreign-literary-opinion>.
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