Analysis of Cats
Charles Baudelaire 1821 (Paris) – 1867 (Paris)
They are alike, prim scholar and perfervid lover:
When comes the season of decay, they both decide
Upon sweet, husky cats to be the household pride;
Cats choose, like them, to sit, and like them, shudder.
Like partisans of carnal dalliance and science,
They search for silence and the shadowings of dread;
Hell well might harness them as horses for the dead,
If it could bend their native proudness in compliance.
In reverie they emulate the noble mood
Of giant sphinxes stretched in depths of solitude
Who seem to slumber in a never-ending dream;
Within their fertile loins a sparkling magic lies;
Finer than any sand are dusts of gold that gleam,
Vague starpoints, in the mystic iris of their eyes.
Scheme | ABBA CDDC EEF GFG |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11011100110 11010101111 01110111011 11111101110 1100110100010 1111000111 111101110101 111111010010 01001100101 1101101110 111100010101 011101010101 101101111111 11001010111 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 695 |
Words | 123 |
Sentences | 4 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 3, 3 |
Lines Amount | 14 |
Letters per line (avg) | 40 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 140 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 30 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 03, 2023
- 36 sec read
- 181 Views
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"Cats" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/4903/cats>.
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