Analysis of Americanisation
Gilbert Keith Chesterton 1874 (Kensington, London) – 1936 (Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire)
Britannia needs no Boulevards,
No spaces wide and gay:
Her march was through the crooked streets
Along the narrow way.
Nor looks she where, New York's seduction,
The Broadway leadeth to destruction.
Britannia needs no Cafes:
If Coffee needs must be,
Its place should be the Coffee-house
Where Johnson growled for Tea;
But who can hear that human mountain
Growl for an ice-cream soda-fountain?
She needs no Russian Theatrey
Mere Father strangles Mother,
In scenes where all the characters
And colours kill each other--
Her boast is freedom had by halves,
And Britons never shall be Slavs.
But if not hers the Dance of Death,
Great Dostoievsky's dance,
And if the things most finely French
Are better done in France--
Might not Americanisation
Be best applied to its own nation?
Ere every shop shall be a store
And every Trade a Trust . . .
Lo, many men in many lands
Know when their cause is just.
There will be quite a large attendance
When we Declare our Independence.
Scheme | XAXABB XCXCBB DDXDXX XEXEBB DFXFGG |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (20%) Etheree (20%) |
Metre | 01001110 110101 01110101 010101 111111010 0111010 0100111 110111 11110101 110111 111111010 111111010 111101 110110 01110100 011110 01110111 01010111 11100111 111 01011101 110101 111 110111110 110011101 0100101 11010101 111111 111101010 110110010 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 958 |
Words | 168 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 30 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 154 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 34 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 08, 2023
- 51 sec read
- 138 Views
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"Americanisation" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 8 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/15966/americanisation>.
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