Genius
Understanding, indeed, can repeat what already existed,--That which Nature has built, after her she, too, can build.Over Nature can reason build, but in vacancy only:But thou, genius, alone, nature in nature canst form.
Words in this poem
- vacancy n.
- The quality or state of being vacant; emptiness; hence, freedom from employment; intermission; leisure; idleness; listlessness. [Cf. F. vacance.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Genius is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of Schiller — Third period, Project Gutenberg ebook #6796; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Friedrich Schiller, Genius, in The Poems of Schiller: Third Period (1805), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #6796, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/schiller-third-period/genius-2.html, id L21902.
Form and metre
Genius 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 tetrameter.
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Understanding, indeed, can repeat what already existed,-- | 16 | ·˘/˘˘/·˘/·˘/˘˘/˘ |
| That which Nature has built, after her she, too, can build. | 13 | ··/˘········· |
| Over Nature can reason build, but in vacancy only: | 13 | ·/˘·/˘···/˘/˘ |
| But thou, genius, alone, nature in nature canst form. | 13 | ··/˘˘//˘·/˘·· |
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.