Analysis of Ignorant Before the Heavens of My Life
Rainer Maria Rilke 1875 (Prague) – 1926 (Montreux)
Ignorant before the heavens of my life,
I stand and gaze in wonder. Oh the vastness
of the stars. Their rising and descent. How still.
As if I didn't exist. Do I have any
share in this? Have I somehow dispensed with
their pure effect? Does my blood's ebb and flow
change with their changes? Let me put aside
every desire, every relationship
except this one, so that my heart grows used to
its farthest spaces. Better that it live
fully aware, in the terror of its stars, than
as if protected, soothed by what is near.
| Scheme | ABCDEFGHIJKL |
|---|---|
| Poetic Form | |
| Metre | 10001010111 11010101010 10111000111 111100111110 101111011 1101111101 1111011101 100010100010 01111111111 1101010111 100100101111 1101011111 |
| Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
| Characters | 514 |
| Words | 99 |
| Sentences | 11 |
| Stanzas | 1 |
| Stanza Lengths | 12 |
| Lines Amount | 12 |
| Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
| Words per line (avg) | 8 |
| Letters per stanza (avg) | 403 |
| Words per stanza (avg) | 97 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 28, 2023
- 30 sec read
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