Analysis of The Blindman's Song
Rainer Maria Rilke 1875 (Prague) – 1926 (Montreux)
I am blind, you outsiders. It is a curse,
a contradiction, a tiresome farce,
and every day I despair.
I put my hand on the arm of my wife
(colorless hand on colorless sleeve)
and she walks me through empty air.
You push and shove and think that you've been
sounding different from stone against stone,
but you are mistaken: I alone
live and suffer and howl.
In me there is an endless outcry
and I can't tell what's crying, whether its my
broken heart or my bowels.
Are the tunes familiar? You don't sing them like this:
how could you understand?
Each morning the sunlight comes into your house,
and you welcome it as a friend.
And you know what it's like to see face-to-face;
and that tempts you to be kind.
Scheme | XXAXXA XBBXCCX XXXXXX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11110101101 001001001 01001101 1111101111 100111001 01111101 110101111 1010011011 111010101 101001 01111101 01111101011 1011110 101010111111 11101 1100110111 01101101 01111111111 0111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 697 |
Words | 135 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 7, 6 |
Lines Amount | 19 |
Letters per line (avg) | 29 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 182 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 44 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 42 sec read
- 152 Views
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