A Literary Method
His poems Riley says that he inditesUpon an empty stomach. Heavenly Powers,Feed him throat-full: for what the beggar writesUpon his empty stomach empties ours!
About this text
A Literary Method is in the public domain. This text is taken from Shapes of Clay (1903), Project Gutenberg ebook #12658; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Ambrose Bierce, A Literary Method, in Shapes of Clay (1903), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12658, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bierce-shapes-of-clay/a-literary-method.html, id L28132.
Form and metre
A Literary Method is 4 lines in a single stanza. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter.
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 -A-A indites · powersA · writes · oursA
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| His poems Riley says that he indites | 10 | ·/˘/˘···˘/ |
| Upon an empty stomach. Heavenly Powers, | 10 | ···/˘/˘/˘/ |
| Feed him throat-full: for what the beggar writes | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Upon his empty stomach empties ours! | 11 | ···/˘/˘/˘/˘ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.