Analysis of Conundrums

David Herbert Lawrence 1885 (Eastwood, Nottinghamshire) – 1930 (Vence)



Tell me a word
that you've often heard,
yet it makes you squint
when you see it in print!

Tell me a thing
that you've often seen
yet if put in a book
it makes you turn green!

Tell me a thing
that you often do,
when described in a story
shocks you through and through!

Tell me what's wrong
with words or with you
that you don't mind the thing
yet the name is taboo.


Scheme aabb Cdxd Cexe xece
Poetic Form Quatrain 
Metre 1101 11101 11111 111101 1101 11101 111001 11111 1101 11101 1010010 11101 1111 11111 111101 101101
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 357
Words 78
Sentences 5
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 16
Letters per line (avg) 17
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 70
Words per stanza (avg) 19
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

24 sec read
42

David Herbert Lawrence

David Herbert Lawrence was an English writer and poet. His collected works represent, among other things, an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation. Lawrence's writing explores issues such as sexuality, emotional health, vitality, spontaneity, and instinct. Lawrence's opinions earned him many enemies and he endured official persecution, censorship, and misrepresentation of his creative work throughout the second half of his life, much of which he spent in a voluntary exile he called his "savage pilgrimage". At the time of his death, his public reputation was that of a pornographer who had wasted his considerable talents. E. M. Forster, in an obituary notice, challenged this widely held view, describing him as "the greatest imaginative novelist of our generation." Later, the literary critic F. R. Leavis championed both his artistic integrity and his moral seriousness. more…

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