This is an analysis of the poem To The City Of London that begins with:

London, thou art of town{.e}s A per se.
Soveraign of cities, semeliest in sight,...

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: aaXXaXXB XcaccXXB XXXXXXXb XXXddbdb aeXeeXeB XXXfXbfb XgXcXXgB
  • Stanza lengths (in strings): 8,8,8,8,8,8,8,
  • Closest metre: trochaic pentameter
  • Сlosest rhyme: no rhyme
  • Сlosest stanza type: tercets
  • Guessed form: unknown form
  • Metre: 1011010111 10001010001 011010110 01010110101 01010010101 0101000100100 0100101011 10110100101 1010110110 111110111 0101100111 1001010101 01010101101 11010010100 1011010101 10110100101 1011100100 1101001110 110101010 0101011100 100101010 011001100 1101100010 1011010101 01110110110 1101010110 1011010101 11001110101 11001111101 11001110110 11010101101 1011010101 0111010101 0100110001 0111011001001 01010110011 11010111001 100101100 11000011101 10110100101 10110101010 10010101010 10110001010 101101100110 1011000101100 10111100111 10110101010 10110100101 11011100100 01010010100 1101010110 0101101011 101001111 100010111000 01110110110 10110100101
  • Amount of stanzas: 7
  • Average number of symbols per stanza: 362
  • Average number of words per stanza: 59
  • Amount of lines: 56
  • Average number of symbols per line: 45 (strings are more long than medium ones)
  • 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; of, and, in, be, thy are repeated.

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

    The poet repeated the same word all at the end of some neighboring stanzas. The poetic device is a kind of epiphora.

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

  • summary of To The City Of London;
  • central theme;
  • idea of the verse;
  • history of its creation;
  • critical appreciation.

Good luck in your poetry interpretation practice!

More information about poems by William Dunbar