Analysis of Margarita

Boris Pasternak 1890 (Moscow) – 1960 (Peredelkino)



Sundering the bushes like a snare,
More violet than Margarita's tight-pressed lips,
More passionate than Margarita's white-eyed stare,
The nightingale glowed, royally throbbed and trilled.

Like the scent of grass ascending,
Like the crazed rainfall's mercury, the foliage among,
He stupefied the bark, approached the mouth, panting,
And, halting there, upon a braid he hung.

When Margarita to the light was drawn,
Stroking her eyes with an astonished hand,
It seemed, beneath the helm of branch and rain,
A weary Amazon was fallen to the ground.

Her head in her hand in his hand lay,
Her other arm was bent back up to where,
Dangling, there hung her helmet of shade,
Sundering the branches like a snare.


Scheme AXAB CDCD XBXB XABA
Poetic Form Quatrain  (50%)
Metre 1010101 110011111 110011111 01001100101 10111010 101110001001 1101010110 0101010111 101010111 1001110101 1101011101 01010110101 010010111 0101111111 1001101011 1010101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 696
Words 119
Sentences 5
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 16
Letters per line (avg) 35
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 140
Words per stanza (avg) 29
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

36 sec read
65

Boris Pasternak

Boris Leonidovich Pasternak was a Russian poet, novelist, and literary translator. more…

All Boris Pasternak poems | Boris Pasternak Books

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