Analysis of Woman in Love

Rainer Maria Rilke 1875 (Prague) – 1926 (Montreux)



That is my window. Just now
I have so softly wakened.
I thought that I would float.
How far does my life reach,
and where does the night begin

I could think that everything
was still me all around;
transparent like a crystal's
depths, darkened, mute.

I could keep even the stars
within me; so immense
my heart seems to me; so willingly
it let him go again.

whom I began perhaps to love, perhaps to hold.
Like something strange, undreamt-of,
my fate now gazes at me.

For what, then, am I stretched out
beneath this endlessness,
exuding fragrance like a meadow,
swayed this way and that,

calling out and frightened
that someone will hear the call,
and destined to disappear
inside some other life.


Scheme XAAXX XABA XXCX AXC ABAA AXXX
Poetic Form
Metre 1111011 111101 111111 111111 0110101 111110 111101 0101010 1101 1111001 011101 111111100 111101 110101110111 110111 1111011 1111111 0111 01010101 11101 101010 111101 010101 011101
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 680
Words 127
Sentences 9
Stanzas 6
Stanza Lengths 5, 4, 4, 3, 4, 4
Lines Amount 24
Letters per line (avg) 23
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 91
Words per stanza (avg) 21
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on May 02, 2023

38 sec read
240

Rainer Maria Rilke

René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke — better known as Rainer Maria Rilke — was a Bohemian-Austrian poet and novelist, "widely recognized as one of the most lyrically intense German-language poets", writing in both verse and highly lyrical prose. more…

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