Analysis of A Ballad of Gentleness
Geoffrey Chaucer 1343 (London) – 1400 (London)
The firste stock-father of gentleness,
What man desireth gentle for to be,
Must follow his trace, and all his wittes dress,
Virtue to love, and vices for to flee;
For unto virtue longeth dignity,
And not the reverse, safely dare I deem,
All wear he mitre, crown, or diademe.
This firste stock was full of righteousness,
True of his word, sober, pious, and free,
Clean of his ghost, and loved business,
Against the vice of sloth, in honesty;
And, but his heir love virtue as did he,
He is not gentle, though he riche seem,
All wear he mitre, crown, or diademe.
Vice may well be heir to old richess,
But there may no man, as men may well see,
Bequeath his heir his virtuous nobless;
That is appropried to no degree,
But to the first Father in majesty,
Which makes his heire him that doth him queme,
All wear he mitre, crown, or diademe.
Scheme | abxbbcC ababbcC ababbcC |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 011101100 11110111 1101101111 1011010111 110101100 0100110111 11110111 111111100 1111101001 11110110 0101110100 0111110111 111101111 11110111 11111111 1111111111 011111001 1111101 1101100100 111111111 11110111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 822 |
Words | 157 |
Sentences | 4 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 7, 7, 7 |
Lines Amount | 21 |
Letters per line (avg) | 31 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 214 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 52 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 02, 2023
- 47 sec read
- 655 Views
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