Analysis of Sonnet To Mrs. Reynolds's Cat

John Keats 1795 (Moorgate) – 1821 (Rome)



Cat! who hast pass'd thy grand climacteric,
How many mice and rats hast in thy days
Destroy'd? How many tit bits stolen? Gaze
With those bright languid segments green, and prick
Those velvet ears -- but pr'ythee do not stick
Thy latent talons in me -- and upraise
Thy gentle mew -- and tell me all thy frays,
Of fish and mice, and rats and tender chick.
Nay, look not down, nor lick thy dainty wrists--
For all thy wheezy asthma -- and for all
Thy tail's tip is nick'd off -- and though the fists
Of many a maid have given thee many a maul,
Still is that fur as soft, as when the lists
In youth thou enter'dest on glass bottled wall.


Scheme ABBAABBACDCDCD
Poetic Form
Metre 1111111 1101011011 0111011101 1111010101 110111111 110100101 1101011111 1101010101 1111111101 111110011 1111110101 1100111011001 1111111101 01110111101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 628
Words 126
Sentences 6
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 34
Words per line (avg) 9
Letters per stanza (avg) 479
Words per stanza (avg) 124
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 23, 2023

39 sec read
97

John Keats

John Keats was an English Romantic poet. more…

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