A Drama in Verse
Boyars, The People, Inspectors, Officers, Attendants, Guests,a Boy in attendance on Prince Shuisky, a Catholic Priest, aPolish Noble, a Poet, an Idiot, a Beggar, Gentlemen, Peasants,Guards, Russian, Polish, and German Soldiers, a RussianPrisoner of War, Boys, an old Woman, Ladies, Serving-women.
Words in this poem
- attendance n.
- Attention; regard; careful application. [OE. attendance, OF. atendance, fr. atendre, F. attendre. See Attend, v. t.]
- idiot n.
- A man in private station, as distinguished from one holding a public office. [F. idiot, L. idiota an uneducated, ignorant, ill- informed person, Gr. Idiom.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Drama in Verse is in the public domain. This text is taken from Boris Godunov: a drama in verse, Project Gutenberg ebook #5089; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Alexander Pushkin, A Drama in Verse, in Boris Godunov (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #5089, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/pushkin-boris-godunov/a-drama-in-verse.html, id L26198.
Form and metre
A Drama in Verse is 5 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.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Boyars, The People, Inspectors, Officers, Attendants, Guests, | 14 | ˘/·/˘˘/˘/˘˘/˘· |
| a Boy in attendance on Prince Shuisky, a Catholic Priest, a | 15 | ···˘/˘·····/˘·· |
| Polish Noble, a Poet, an Idiot, a Beggar, Gentlemen, Peasants, | 17 | /˘/˘·/˘·/˘·/˘/˘/˘ |
| Guards, Russian, Polish, and German Soldiers, a Russian | 13 | ·/˘/˘·/˘/˘·/˘ |
| Prisoner of War, Boys, an old Woman, Ladies, Serving-women. | 15 | /˘·····/˘/˘/˘/˘ |
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.