Analysis of How I Became a Madman (Prologue)
Kahlil Gibran 1883 (Bsharri, Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate) – 1931 ( New York City)
You ask me how I became a madman. It happened thus: One day, long before many gods were born, I woke from a deep sleep and found all my masks were stolen,—the seven masks I have fashioned and worn in seven lives,—I ran maskless through the crowded streets shouting, “Thieves, thieves, the cursed thieves.”
Men and women laughed at me and some ran to their houses in fear of me.
And when I reached the market place, a youth standing on a house-top cried, “He is a madman.” I looked up to behold him; the sun kissed my own naked face for the first time. For the first time the sun kissed my own naked face and my soul was inflamed with love for the sun, and I wanted my masks no more. And as if in a trance I cried, “Blessed, blessed are the thieves who stole my masks.”
Thus I became a madman.
And I have found both freedom and safety in my madness; the freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, for those who understand us enslave something in us.
But let me not be too proud of my safety. Even a Thief in a jail is safe from another thief.
Scheme | X X X X X X |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111110101110111101101011110110111101001011110010101111101011011011 101011101111100111 0111010101101011111011111011011111011011101101111101011101111010110111101100111111011111 110101 011111001001100101100001011001111011011001 1111111111010010011110101 |
Characters | 1,069 |
Words | 211 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 |
Lines Amount | 6 |
Letters per line (avg) | 136 |
Words per line (avg) | 34 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 136 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 34 |
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"How I Became a Madman (Prologue)" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 15 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/54031/how-i-became-a-madman-%28prologue%29>.
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