Analysis of Fool-Youngens

James Whitcomb Riley 1849 (Greenfield) – 1916 (Indianapolis)



Me an' Bert an' Minnie-Belle
Knows a joke, an' we won't tell!
No, we don't--'cause we don't know
_Why_ we got to laughin' so;
But we got to laughin' so,
'We ist kep' a-laughin'.

Wind wuz blowin' in the tree--
An' wuz only ist us three
Playin' there; an' ever' one
Ketched each other, like we done,
Squintin' up there at the sun
Like we wuz a-laughin'.

Nothin' funny anyway;
But I laughed, an' so did they--
An' we all three laughed, an' nen
Squint' our eyes an' laugh' again:
Ner we didn't ist _p'ten'_--
We wuz _shore-'nough_ laughin'.

'We ist laugh' an' laugh', tel Bert
Say he _can't_ quit an' it hurt.
Nen I _howl_, an' Minnie-Belle
She tear up the grass a spell
An' ist stop her yeers an' _yell_
Like she'd _die_ a-laughin'.

Never sich fool-youngens yit!
Nothin' funny,--not a bit!--
But we laugh' so; tel we whoop'
Purt'-nigh like we have the croup--
All so hoarse we'd wheeze an' whoop
An' ist _choke_ a-laughin'.


Scheme AABBBB CCDDDB EEBXBB FFAAAB FXGGGB
Poetic Form Etheree  (20%)
Metre 1111101 1011111 1110111 111111 111111 11101 111001 1110111 111101 1110111 111101 11101 101010 1111111 1111111 11011101 111011 11111 1111111 1111111 1111101 1110101 1110111 11101 101111 1010101 1111111 1111101 1111111 11101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 899
Words 172
Sentences 10
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 6, 6, 6, 6, 6
Lines Amount 30
Letters per line (avg) 22
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 131
Words per stanza (avg) 34
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

55 sec read
69

James Whitcomb Riley

James Whitcomb Riley was an American writer, poet, and best-selling author. During his lifetime he was known as the "Hoosier Poet" and "Children's Poet" for his dialect works and his children's poetry respectively. more…

All James Whitcomb Riley poems | James Whitcomb Riley Books

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    Which of these famous poems is written in villanelle form?
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