Analysis of Whip-Poor-Will And Katy-Did

Paul Laurence Dunbar 1872 (Dayton) – 1906



Slow de night 's a-fallin',
An' I hyeah de callin,
Out erpon de lonesome hill;
Soun' is moughty dreary,
Solemn-lak an' skeery,
Sayin' fu' to 'whip po' Will.'

Now hit 's moughty tryin',
Fu' to hyeah dis cryin',
'Deed hit 's mo' den I kin stan';
Sho' wid all our slippin',
Dey 's enough of whippin'
'Dout a bird a'visin' any man.

In de noons o' summah
Dey 's anothah hummah
Sings anothah song instid;
An' his th'oat 's a-swellin'
Wid de joy o' tellin',
But he says dat 'Katy did.'

Now I feels onsuhtain;
Won't you raise de cu'tain
Ovah all de ti'ngs dat 's hid?
W'y dat feathahed p'isen
Goes erbout a-visin'
Whippin' Will w'en Katy did?


Scheme AABCCB AADAAD EEFAAF AAFAAF
Poetic Form
Metre 1111010 11111 111101 11110 10111 111111 11111 11111 11111111 111101 110111 1011101 01111 1111 1111 11111101 11111 1111101 1111 11111 1111111 1001111 1101 111001101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 619
Words 123
Sentences 6
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 6, 6, 6, 6
Lines Amount 24
Letters per line (avg) 19
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 113
Words per stanza (avg) 30
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

38 sec read
125

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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