Analysis of The Last Supper
Rainer Maria Rilke 1875 (Prague) – 1926 (Montreux)
They are assembled, astonished and disturbed
round him, who like a sage resolved his fate,
and now leaves those to whom he most belonged,
leaving and passing by them like a stranger.
The loneliness of old comes over him
which helped mature him for his deepest acts;
now will he once again walk through the olive grove,
and those who love him still will flee before his sight.
To this last supper he has summoned them,
and (like a shot that scatters birds from trees)
their hands draw back from reaching for the loaves
upon his word: they fly across to him;
they flutter, frightened, round the supper table
searching for an escape. But he is present
everywhere like an all-pervading twilight-hour.
[On seeing Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper", Milan 1904.]
Translated by Albert Ernest Flemming
Scheme | XXXABXXX XXXBXXA X X |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11010010001 1111010111 0111111101 10010111010 0100111101 1101111101 111101110101 011111110111 1111011101 010111111 1111110101 0111110111 11010101010 10110111110 10111010110 11001011011001 0101101010 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 785 |
Words | 139 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 7, 1, 1 |
Lines Amount | 17 |
Letters per line (avg) | 37 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 158 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 34 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 11, 2023
- 42 sec read
- 343 Views
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"The Last Supper" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/29721/the-last-supper>.
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