Analysis of The Fan

Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell 1887 (Scarborough) – 1964 (Weedon Lois)



LOVELY Semiramis
Closes her slanting eyes:
Dead is she long ago.
From her fan, sliding slow,
Parrot-bright fire's feathers,
Gilded as June weathers,
Plumes bright and shrill as grass
Twinkle down; as they pass
Through the green glooms in Hell
Fruits with a tuneful smell,
Grapes like an emerald rain,
Where the full moon has lain,
Greengages bright as grass,
Melons as cold as glass,
Piled on each gilded booth,
Feel their cheeks growing smooth.
Apes in plumed head-dresses
Whence the bright heat hisses,--
Nubian faces, sly
Pursing mouth, slanting eye,
Feel the Arabian
Winds floating from the fan.


Scheme AABBAAAACCDDAAEFAAGGHI
Poetic Form
Metre 101 100101 111101 101101 1011010 101110 110111 101111 101101 110101 111101 101111 1111 101111 111101 111101 101110 101110 100101 11101 100100 110101
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 607
Words 102
Sentences 4
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 22
Lines Amount 22
Letters per line (avg) 22
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 477
Words per stanza (avg) 99
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

30 sec read
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Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell

Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell was a British poet and critic and the eldest of the three literary Sitwells. She reacted badly to her eccentric, unloving parents and lived much of her life with her governess. She never married but became passionately attached to Russian painter Pavel Tchelitchew, and her home was always open to London's poetic circle, to whom she was generous and helpful. Sitwell published poetry continuously from 1913, some of it abstract and set to music. With her dramatic style and exotic costumes, she was sometimes labelled a poseur, but her work was praised for its solid technique and painstaking craftsmanship. She was a recipient of the Benson Medal. more…

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