Analysis of Questions From a Worker Who Reads
Bertolt Brecht 1898 (Augsburg) – 1956 (East Berlin)
Who built Thebes of the seven gates?
In the books you will find the names of kings.
Did the kings haul up the lumps of rock?
And Babylon, many times demolished
Who raised it up so many times? In what houses
of gold-glittering Lima did the builders live?
Where, the evening that the Wall of China was finished
Did the masons go? Great Rome
Is full of triumphal arches. Who erected them? Over whom
Did the Caesars triumph? Had Byzantium, much praised in song
Only palaces for its inhabitants? Even in fabled Atlantis
The night the ocean engulfed it
The drowning still bawled for their slaves.
The young Alexander conquered India.
Was he alone?
Caesar beat the Gauls.
Did he not have even a cook with him?
Philip of Spain wept when his armada
Went down. Was he the only one to weep?
Frederick the Second won the Seven Year's War. Who
Else won it?
Every page a victory.
Who cooked the feast for the victors?
Every ten years a great man?
Who paid the bill?
So many reports.
So many questions.
Scheme | XXXAXXAXXXXBX CXXX CXXB XXXX XX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11110101 0011110111 101110111 010101010 111111010110 111001010101 1010101110110 1010111 1110101010101101 101010101001101 1010011010010010010 01010011 01011111 0101010100 1101 10101 1111100111 1011111010 1111010111 100101010111 111 10010100 11011010 10011011 1101 11001 11010 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 969 |
Words | 184 |
Sentences | 26 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 13, 4, 4, 4, 2 |
Lines Amount | 27 |
Letters per line (avg) | 29 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 155 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 36 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 03, 2023
- 55 sec read
- 322 Views
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"Questions From a Worker Who Reads" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 5 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/4309/questions-from-a-worker-who-reads>.
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