A Pig’s-Eye View of Literature: Alexandre Dumas and His Son
Although I work, and seldom cease,At Dumas père and Dumas fils,Alas, I cannot make me careFor Dumas fils and Dumas père.
Words in this poem
- fils n.
- Son; -- sometimes used after a French proper name to distinguish a son from his father, as, Alexandre Dumas, fils.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Pig’s-Eye View of Literature: Alexandre Dumas and His Son is in the public domain. This text is taken from Sunset Gun: Poems (Boni & Liveright, 1928), English Wikisource; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Dorothy Parker, A Pig’s-Eye View of Literature: Alexandre Dumas and His Son, in Sunset Gun (1928), text of English Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/parker-sunset-gun/pigs-eye-alexandre-dumas-and-his-son.html, id L27428.
Form and metre
A Pig’s-Eye View of Literature: Alexandre Dumas and His Son is 4 lines in a single stanza.
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.
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Although I work, and seldom cease, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| At Dumas père and Dumas fils, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Alas, I cannot make me care | 8 | ˘/·/˘··· |
| For Dumas fils and Dumas père. | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
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.