Analysis of Naenia

Friedrich Schiller 1759 (Marbach am Neckar) – 1805 (Weimar)



Even the beauteous must die!  This vanquishes men and immortals;
 But of the Stygian god moves not the bosom of steel.
Once and once only could love prevail on the ruler of shadows,
 And on the threshold, e'en then, sternly his gift he recalled.
Venus could never heal the wounds of the beauteous stripling,
 That the terrible boar made in his delicate skin;
Nor could his mother immortal preserve the hero so godlike,
 When at the west gate of Troy, falling, his fate he fulfilled.
But she arose from the ocean with all the daughters of Nereus,
 And o'er her glorified son raised the loud accents of woe.
See! where all the gods and goddesses yonder are weeping,
 That the beauteous must fade, and that the perfect must die.
Even a woe-song to be in the mouth of the loved ones is glorious,
 For what is vulgar descends mutely to Orcus' dark shades.


Scheme ABCDEFEGAHEIJK
Poetic Form
Metre 1001111110010 11010011101011 101101101101011 01011111011101 1011010110110 1010011011001 111100100101011 11011111011101 110110101101011 01001011011011 11101010010110 101110100111 100111100110111100 111100111111
Closest metre Iambic octameter
Characters 845
Words 155
Sentences 9
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 48
Words per line (avg) 11
Letters per stanza (avg) 665
Words per stanza (avg) 154
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 10, 2023

47 sec read
200

Friedrich Schiller

Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was a German poet philosopher historian and playwright During the last seventeen years of his life Schiller struck up a productive if complicated friendship with already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang Goethe with whom he frequently discussed issues concerning aesthetics and encouraged Goethe to finish works he left merely as sketches this relationship and these discussions led to a period now referred to as Weimar Classicism They also worked together on Die Xenien The Xenies a collection of short but harshly satirical poems in which both Schiller and Goethe verbally attacked those persons they perceived to be enemies of their aesthetic agenda. more…

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