This is an analysis of the poem What The Traveller Said At Sunset that begins with:

The shadows grow and deepen round me,
I feel the deffall in the air;... full text

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: abcb defe acfc aeae gede hiei eigi ejkj Xlgl kmhm bjXj
  • Stanza lengths (in strings): 4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4,
  • Closest metre: iambic tetrameter
  • Сlosest rhyme: alternate rhyme
  • Сlosest stanza type: tercets
  • Guessed form: ballad stanza
  • Metre: 011111011 11010001 0100010010 11011101 010101011 11011001 011101010 011101001 100101011 11010101 111001010 11111111 111111011 11010101 110101011 01010101 110101010 11010011 110100010 11111101 101111010 10110111 011101110 010010101 100101010 0101000101 0100101110 01010100 110101010 11010111 1100101010 01110101 111101110 11001101 110001010 11010111 011101110 11110101 110101110 11111111 110111111 101100101 111111010 10101100
  • Amount of stanzas: 11
  • Average number of symbols per stanza: 143
  • Average number of words per stanza: 26
  • Amount of lines: 44
  • Average number of symbols per line: 35 (medium-length strings)
  • Average number of words per line: 7
  • Mood of the speaker:

    The punctuation marks are various. Neither mark predominates.

  • The author used lexical repetitions to emphasize a significant image; what, and, of are repeated.

    The poet used anaphora at the beginnings of some neighboring lines. The same words what, i, the are repeated.

    The author used the same word the at the beginnings of some neighboring stanzas. The figure of speech is a kind of anaphora.

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

  • summary of What The Traveller Said At Sunset;
  • central theme;
  • idea of the verse;
  • history of its creation;
  • critical appreciation.

Good luck in your poetry interpretation practice!

More information about poems by John Greenleaf Whittier