Analysis of Of Myths and Legends
The teller of the tale
speaks not in tenses:
Present, Past, or Future.
The reader, thus…
who dwells on these,
may comprehend
The Piper’s Song
and never grasp
the tune
in which the melody
is cast.
Scheme | ABCBBDEFGHI |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 010101 1101 101110 0101 1111 101 0101 0101 01 010100 11 |
Closest metre | Iambic dimeter |
Characters | 190 |
Words | 36 |
Sentences | 2 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 11 |
Lines Amount | 11 |
Letters per line (avg) | 14 |
Words per line (avg) | 3 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 151 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 36 |
About this poem
Written as part of a collection of aphorisms in a tiny Italian cork journal given to me in 1981 as a parting gift by a dear Italian friend, a colleague, and a comrade poet, this parsimoniously written poem, entitled “Myths and Legends,” invites its readers, in their pursuit of being entertained by artists of all persuasions across all cultures and languages, to exercise their imagination to the fullest and recognize that what each artist desires most, consciously or unconsciously, is for each individual to see himself or herself as an integral part of the warp and woof of the human existential experience, masked, dramatized, and amplified in archetypal images, in universal myths and legends. A line of the poem makes mention of The Piper’s Song, which is referenced as an allusion to the poet Robert Browning’s “Pied Piper of Hamelin (“Raffenfanget von Hamelin”), the title character of a legend from the town of Hamelin in Lower Saxony, Germany, who, in the tale, appears dressed in “pied” (multicolored) clothing. The multicolored clothing is suggestive of the multifaceted dimensions of any serious artistic work that defies time and space, not allowing ready closure of interpretation, but enabling each reader or listener, in his or her own time and space, to obtain in the reading and in the listening, an interpretation that speaks to the heart of the individual ( to emotionally grasp the tune, so to speak, while intellectually comprehending the song. more »
Written on November 11, 1981
Submitted by karlcfolkes on November 02, 2021
Modified on April 15, 2023
- 10 sec read
- 853 Views
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem analysis to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"Of Myths and Legends" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 8 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/113233/of-myths-and-legends>.
Discuss this Karl Constantine FOLKES poem analysis with the community:
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In