Analysis of The Mathematician in Love
William John Macquorn Rankine 1820 (Edinburgh) – 1872 (Glasgow)
A mathematician fell madly in love
With a lady, young, handsome, and charming:
By angles and ratios harmonic he strove
Her curves and proportions all faultless to prove.
As he scrawled hieroglyphics alarming.
He measured with care, from the ends of a base,
The arcs which her features subtended:
Then he framed transcendental equations, to trace
The flowing outlines of her figure and face,
And thought the result very splendid.
He studied (since music has charms for the fair)
The theory of fiddles and whistles, --
Then composed, by acoustic equations, an air,
Which, when 'twas performed, made the lady's long hair
Stand on end, like a porcupine's bristles.
The lady loved dancing: -- he therefore applied,
To the polka and waltz, an equation;
But when to rotate on his axis he tried,
His centre of gravity swayed to one side,
And he fell, by the earth's gravitation.
No doubts of the fate of his suit made him pause,
For he proved, to his own satisfaction,
That the fair one returned his affection; -- "because,
"As every one knows, by mechanical laws,
"Re-action is equal to action."
"Let x denote beauty, -- y, manners well-bred, --
"z, Fortune, -- (this last is essential), --
"Let L stand for love" -- our philosopher said, --
"Then L is a function of x, y, and z,
"Of the kind which is known as potential."
"Now integrate L with respect to d t,
"(t Standing for time and persuasion);
"Then, between proper limits, 'tis easy to see,
"The definite integral Marriage must be: --
"(A very concise demonstration)."
Said he -- "If the wandering course of the moon
"By Algebra can be predicted,
"The female affections must yield to it soon" --
-- But the lady ran off with a dashing dragoon,
And left him amazed and afflicted.
Scheme | XAXXA BCBBC DEDDE CFCCF GFGGF CHCIH CFIIF JCJFC |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 0001011001 1010110010 11001001011 0100101111 111010010 11011101101 0110101 11101001011 0101101001 010011010 11011011101 010110010 101101001011 11101101011 11110110 0101101101 1010011010 1111111011 11011001111 011101010 11101111111 111111010 101101101001 110011101001 110110110 11011011011 110111010 111111001001 11101011101 1011111010 1101101111 110110010 101101011011 01001001011 01001010 11101001101 110011010 0101011111 10101110101 011010010 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,762 |
Words | 318 |
Sentences | 18 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5 |
Lines Amount | 40 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 163 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 38 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 14, 2023
- 1:35 min read
- 188 Views
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