Analysis of The Game Of Chess

Ezra Pound 1885 (Hailey) – 1972 (Venice)



Red knights, brown bishops, bright queens,
Striking the board, falling in strong ‘L's of
colour.
Reaching and striking in angles,
holding lines in one colour.
This board is alive with light;
these pieces are living in form,
Their moves break and reform the pattern:
luminous green from the rooks,
Clashing with ‘X's of queens,
looped with the knight-leaps.

‘Y' pawns, cleaving, embanking!
Whirl ! Centripetal ! Mate ! King down in the
vortex,
Clash, leaping of bands, straight strips of hard
colour,
Blocked lights working in. Escapes. Renewal of
contest.


Scheme abCxcxxxxax xxxxCbx
Poetic Form
Metre 1111011 1001100111 1 10010010 101011 1110111 11011001 111001010 1001101 1011011 11011 1111 1111100 10 110111111 1 11100010101 10
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 552
Words 89
Sentences 11
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 11, 7
Lines Amount 18
Letters per line (avg) 24
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 217
Words per stanza (avg) 45
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 18, 2023

27 sec read
346

Ezra Pound

Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic of the early modernist movement. more…

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