"The Fascination of What's Difficult"

Rhyme: aaabcccbddeffe

Meter: pentameter,trochaic

Form/Stanzaic Structure: monologue, slow movement, 1 stanza, 4 sentences

Speaker: implied author

Audience: theatre goers, producers, writers, critics

Tone: Hostile toward the issue of theatre criticism and the effects of theatre management on writing .

Diction: formal

Syntax: uses a variety of phrasing throughout

Sound Pattern: varied sound pattern that slows the reader’s pace.

Imagery: illness: theatre business, locked stable: theatre management, plays: writer’s life and blood

Symbolic Language: Olympus, used to make the reader stop and consider the author’s efforts in his writing.

Figurative Devices: metaphors

Theme: What the purpose of an author laboring over his work, if the management will take away the heart of his work.

Argument: Only a writer should be able to edit his works.

Rhetoric: States it through long intricate phrasing.

Flaws: The reference to Olympus on the first readings seems not to fit, but eventually ties to the Herculean work of writing.

Summary: Beginning of the third sentence is a turn in line 8 with “A cure on my plays.” Starts the poem a reflection on how writing plays has taking the joy of writing from him, and changed it to a near impossible task, where is mind is fettered, and afterwards it is changed to please others again.