Analysis of Nancy Knapp
Edgar Lee Masters 1868 (Garnett) – 1950 (Elkins Park)
Well, don't you see this was the way of it:
We bought the farm with what he inherited,
And his brothers and sisters accused him of poisoning
His fathers mind against the rest of them.
And we never had any peace with our treasure.
The murrain took the cattle, and the crops failed.
And lightning struck the granary.
So we mortgaged the farm to keep going.
And he grew silent and was worried all the time.
Then some of the neighbors refused to speak to us,
And took sides with his brothers and sisters.
And I had no place to turn, as one may say to himself,
At an earlier time in life; "No matter,
So and so is my friend, or I can shake this off
With a little trip to Decatur."
Then the dreadfulest smells infested the rooms.
So I set fire to the beds and the old witch-house
Went up in a roar of flame,
As I danced in the yard with waving arms,
While he wept like a freezing steer.
Scheme | ABCDEFECGHIJEKELMNOP |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111110111 11011110100 01100100111100 1101010111 0110110111010 0110100011 010101 1110011110 011100110101 111010011111 0111110010 01111111111101 11100101110 101111111111 101011010 101101001 1111010100111 1100111 1110011101 11110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 869 |
Words | 177 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 20 |
Lines Amount | 20 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 681 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 174 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 23, 2023
- 53 sec read
- 172 Views
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