Analysis of Advice to the Grub Street Verse-writers
Jonathan Swift 1667 (Dublin) – 1745 (Ireland)
Ye poets ragged and forlorn,
Down from your garrets haste;
Ye rhymers, dead as soon as born,
Not yet consign'd to paste;
I know a trick to make you thrive;
O, 'tis a quaint device:
Your still-born poems shall revive,
And scorn to wrap up spice.
Get all your verses printed fair,
Then let them well be dried;
And Curll must have a special care
To leave the margin wide.
Lend these to paper-sparing Pope;
And when he sets to write,
No letter with an envelope
Could give him more delight.
When Pope has fill'd the margins round,
Why then recall your loan;
Sell them to Curll for fifty pound,
And swear they are your own.
Scheme | ABABCDCDEFEF GHGH IJIJ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Traditional rhyme |
Metre | 11010001 111101 1111111 110111 11011111 110101 11110101 011111 11110101 111111 01110101 110101 11110101 011111 1101110 111101 11110101 11111 11111101 011111 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 695 |
Words | 118 |
Sentences | 5 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 12, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 20 |
Letters per line (avg) | 24 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 159 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 39 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 20, 2023
- 36 sec read
- 82 Views
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"Advice to the Grub Street Verse-writers" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/24254/advice-to-the-grub-street-verse-writers>.
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