Analysis of Roman Elegies I

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1749 (Frankfurt) – 1832 (Weimar)



Tell me you stones, O speak, you towering palaces!
Streets, say a word! Spirit of this place, are you dumb?
All things are alive in your sacred walls
eternal Rome, only for me all’s still.
Who will whisper to me, at what window
will I see the sweet thing who will kindle me, and quicken?
Already I guess the ways, walking to her and from her,
ever and always I’ll go, while sweet time slips by.
I’m gazing at church and palace, ruin and column,
like a serious man making sensible use of a journey,
but soon it will happen, and all will be one vast temple,
Love’s temple, receiving its new initiate.
Though you are a whole world, Rome, still, without Love,
the world’s not the world, Rome cannot be Rome.


Scheme ABCDEFGHBIJKLM
Poetic Form
Metre 1111111100100 110110111111 1110101101 0101101111 1110111110 11101111101010 01011011010010 10011111111 1101101010010 1010011010011010 11111001111110 11001011010 11101111011 0110111011
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 708
Words 134
Sentences 9
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 38
Words per line (avg) 9
Letters per stanza (avg) 538
Words per stanza (avg) 132
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 27, 2023

40 sec read
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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer and politician. more…

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