Analysis of The Visitor

Paul Laurence Dunbar 1872 (Dayton) – 1906



LITTLE lady at de do',
W'y you stan' dey knockin'?
Nevah seen you ac' befo'
In er way so shockin'.
Don' you know de sin it is
Fu' to git my temper riz
W'en I's got de rheumatiz
An' my jints is lockin'?
No, ol' Miss ain't sont you down,
Don' you tell no story;
I been seed you hangin' 'roun'
Dis hyeah te'itory.
You des come fu' me to tell
You a tale, an' I ain' — well —
Look hyeah, what is dat I smell?
Steamin' victuals? Glory!
Come in, Missy, how you do?
Come up by de fiah,
I was jokin', chile, wid you;
Bring dat basket nighah.
Huh uh, ain' dat lak ol' Mis,
Sen'in' me a feas' lak dis?
Rheumatiz cain't stop my bliss,
Case I's feelin' spryah.
Chicken meat an' gravy, too,
Hot an' still a-heatin';
Good ol' sweet pertater stew;
Missy b'lieves in treatin'.
Des set down, you blessed chile,
Daddy got to t'ink a while,
Den a story mek you smile
W'en he git thoo eatin'.


Scheme ABCBDDDBBEBEFFFEACACGGGHABABEIIB
Poetic Form
Metre 1010111 10011111 111111 00111 1111111 1111101 10011111 11111 1111111 111110 111111 111 1111111 1011111 1111111 1110 1010111 11111 1111011 11101 1111111 1010111 111111 1111 1011101 11101 11111 10101 1111110 10111101 1010111 10011111
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 856
Words 176
Sentences 14
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 32
Lines Amount 32
Letters per line (avg) 19
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 618
Words per stanza (avg) 174
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

56 sec read
78

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Paul Laurence Dunbar was a seminal American poet of the late 19th and early 20th centuries Dunbar gained national recognition for his 1896 Lyrics of a Lowly Life one poem in the collection being Ode to Ethiopia more…

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