On His Baldness by Bai Juyi: poem analysis

This is an analysis of the poem On His Baldness that begins with:

At dawn I sighed to see my hairs fall;
At dusk I sighed to see my hairs fall....

Elements of the verse: questions and answers

The information we provided is prepared by means of a special computer program. Use the criteria sheet to understand greatest poems or improve your poetry analysis essay.

  • Rhyme scheme: aaXabcXcXXXaXbXc
  • Stanza lengths (in strings): 16,
  • Closest metre: iambic pentameter
  • Сlosest rhyme: no rhyme
  • Сlosest stanza type: sonnet
  • Guessed form: blank verse
  • Metre: 111101111 111101111 111001101111 11111111111 1110110101101 110011100101 10110100111 01111101111 11011101001 111101 00101111011 11111100101 110100100101 1110101101 1111011101 101111001
  • Amount of stanzas: 1
  • Average number of symbols per stanza: 697
  • Average number of words per stanza: 143
  • Amount of lines: 16
  • Average number of symbols per line: 43 (strings are more long than medium ones)
  • Average number of words per line: 9

  • Mood of the speaker:

    The punctuation marks are various. Neither mark predominates.

  • The author used lexical repetitions to emphasize a significant image; i, at, my are repeated.

    The poet used anaphora at the beginnings of some neighboring lines. The same word at is repeated.

    There is a poetic device epiphora at the end of some neighboring lines fall is repeated).

If you write a school or university poetry essay, you should Include in your explanation of the poem:

  • summary of On His Baldness;
  • central theme;
  • idea of the verse;
  • history of its creation;
  • critical appreciation.

Good luck in your poetry interpretation practice!

More information about poems by Bai Juyi

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