Analysis of Not What Was Meant
Bertolt Brecht 1898 (Augsburg) – 1956 (East Berlin)
When the Academy of Arts demanded freedom
Of artistic expression from narrow-minded bureaucrats
There was a howl and a clamour in its immediate vicinity
But roaring above everything
Came a deafening thunder of applause
From beyond the Sector boundary.
Freedom! it roared. Freedom for the artists!
Freedom all round! Freedom for all!
Freedom for the exploiters! Freedom for the warmongers!
Freedom for the Ruhr cartels! Freedom for Hitler's generals!
Softly, my dear fellows...
The Judas kiss for the artists follows
Hard on the Judas kiss for the workers.
The arsonist with his bottle of petrol
Sneaks up grinning to
The Academy of Arts.
But it was not to embrace him, just
To knock the bottle out of his dirty hand that
We asked for elbow room.
Even the narrowest minds
In which peace is harboured
Are more welcome to the arts than the art lover
Who is also a lover of the art of war.
| Scheme | XABXXBXXAXCCXXXXXXXXBX X |
|---|---|
| Poetic Form | |
| Metre | 1001001101010 10100101101010 11010010101000100 1100110 1010010101 101010100 1011101010 10111011 1010110101 101010110110100 101110 0101101010 1101011010 01001110110 11101 0010011 111110111 110101111011 11111 1001001 01111 111010110110 111001010111 |
| Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
| Characters | 871 |
| Words | 157 |
| Sentences | 16 |
| Stanzas | 2 |
| Stanza Lengths | 22, 1 |
| Lines Amount | 23 |
| Letters per line (avg) | 31 |
| Words per line (avg) | 7 |
| Letters per stanza (avg) | 355 |
| Words per stanza (avg) | 78 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 47 sec read
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"Not What Was Meant" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 1 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/4302/not-what-was-meant>.
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