Analysis of From The 'Antigone'

William Butler Yeats 1865 (Sandymount) – 1939 (Menton)



Overcome -- O bitter sweetness,
Inhabitant of the soft cheek of a girl --
The rich man and his affairs,
The fat flocks and the fields' fatness,
Mariners, rough harvesters;
Overcome Gods upon Parnassus;

Overcome the Empyrean; hurl
Heaven and Earth out of their places,
That in the Same calamity
Brother and brother, friend and friend,
Family and family,
City and city may contend,
By that great glory driven wild.

Pray I will and sing I must,
And yet I weep -- Oedipus' child
Descends into the loveless dust.


Scheme ABXAXA BXCDCDE FEF
Poetic Form
Metre 1011010 01001011101 0110101 0110011 1001100 1010110 10011 100111110 10010100 10010101 1000100 10010101 11110101 1110111 01111001 01010101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 500
Words 91
Sentences 3
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 6, 7, 3
Lines Amount 16
Letters per line (avg) 25
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 132
Words per stanza (avg) 30
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 28, 2023

27 sec read
208

William Butler Yeats

William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. more…

All William Butler Yeats poems | William Butler Yeats Books

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