Analysis of Prologue To Faulkener
Charles Lamb 1775 (Inner Temple, London) – 1834 (Edmonton, London)
A TRAGEDY BY WILLIAM GODWIN, 1807.
An author who has given you all delight
Furnished the tale our stage presents to-night.
Some of our earliest tears he taught to steal
Down our young cheeks, and forced us first to feel.
To solitary shores whole years confined,
Who has not read how pensive Crusoe pined?
Who, now grown old, that did not once admire
His goat, his parrot, his uncouth attire,
The stick, due-notched, that told each tedious day
That in the lonely island wore away?
Who has not shuddered, where he stands aghast
At sight of human footsteps in the waste?
Or joyed not, when his trembling hands unbind
Thee, Friday, gentlest of the savage kind?
The genius who conceived that magic tale
Was skilled by native pathos to prevail.
His stories, though rough-drawn and framed in haste,
Had that which pleased our homely grandsires' taste.
His was a various pen, that freely roved
Into all subjects, was in most approved.
Whate'er the theme, his ready Muse obeyed-
Love, courtship, politics, religion, trade-
Gifted alike to shine in every sphere,
Novelist, historian, poet, pamphleteer.
In some blest interval of party-strife,
He drew a striking sketch from private life,
Whose moving scenes of intricate distress
We try to-night in a dramatic dress:
A real story of domestic woe,
That asks no aid from music, verse, or show,
But trusts to truth, to Nature, and Defoe.
Scheme | X AABBCCXXDDXEAC FFEE AXGGHH IIJJKKK |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 010011010 11011101101 10011011011 111010011111 11011011111 110011101 1111110101 1111111101 11110111010 01111111001 1001010101 1111011101 111101001 1111110011 11010010101 0101011101 1111010101 1101110101 1111101011 11010011101 0111010101 1001110101 11100101 10011101001 10001001001 0111001101 1101011101 1101110001 1111000101 011010101 1111110111 1111110001 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,351 |
Words | 236 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 14, 4, 6, 7 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 217 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 47 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:11 min read
- 76 Views
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"Prologue To Faulkener" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 1 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/5369/prologue-to-faulkener>.
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