Analysis of Oaks Tutt
Edgar Lee Masters 1868 (Garnett) – 1950 (Elkins Park)
My mother was for woman's rights
And my father was the rich miller at London Mills.
I dreamed of the wrongs of the world and wanted to right them.
When my father died, I set out to see peoples and countries
In order to learn how to reform the world.
I traveled through many lands.
I saw the ruins of Rome,
And the ruins of Athens,
And the ruins of Thebes.
And I sat by moonlight amid the necropolis of Memphis.
There I was caught up by wings of flame,
And a voice from heaven said to me:
"Injustice, Untruth destroyed them. Go forth!
Preach Justice! Preach Truth!"
And I hastened back to Spoon River
To say farewell to my mother before beginning my work.
They all saw a strange light in my eye.
And by and by, when I taIked, they discovered
What had come in my mind.
Then Jonathan Swift Somers challenged me to debate
The subject, (I taking the negative):
"Pontius Pilate, the Greatest Philosopher of the World."
And he won the debate by saying at last,
"Before you reform the world, Mr. Tutt
Please answer the question of Pontius Pilate:
'What is Truth?'"
Scheme | ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUEVWEN |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11011101 0110101101101 11101101010111 111011111110010 01011110101 1101101 1101011 0010110 001011 011110100100110 111111111 001110111 0100101111 11011 011011110 11111100101011 111011011 01011111010 111011 1100110101101 0011100100 1010100100101 01100111011 0110101101 1100101101 111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,039 |
Words | 202 |
Sentences | 17 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 26 |
Lines Amount | 26 |
Letters per line (avg) | 32 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 819 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 197 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:00 min read
- 130 Views
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