18 pages • 36-minute read
The Ruined Maid
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Literary Devices
Form and Meter
The poem consists of six quatrains (four-line stanzas) and is written in tetrameters, which means that each line has four stresses or beats. However, the meter is unusual, since the majority of lines begin with an iambic foot, consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, followed by three anapestic feet.
An anapest comprises two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable: “And whence such fair garments, such prosperi-ty?” (Line 3); “You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks” (Line 5); “And now you’ve gay bracelets and bright feathers three!” (Line 7); “‘Some polish is gained with one’s ruin,’ said she” (Line 12). A few lines are made up entirely of anapests, making an anapestic tetrameter: “And you’d sigh, and you’d sock; but at present you seem” (Line 18), and “And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!” (Line 22). Anapestic meter is often used for comic verse, as in this poem. It trips along in a quick and lively fashion.
Rhyme
The rhyme scheme is the same in each stanza. Line 1 rhymes with Line 2, and Line 3 rhymes with Line 4, which can be represented as AABB. This means that each stanza is made up of two rhyming couplets. Also, the final two lines of each stanza rhyme with the final two lines of all the other stanzas, which means that the entire rhyme scheme is AABB, CCBB, DDBB, EEBB.
Alliteration
Alliteration is the repetition of initial consonants in adjacent or nearby words. There are a number of examples: “[B]racelets” and “bright” (Line 7), “blue and bleak” (Line 13), “you’d sigh, and you’d sock” (Line 18), and “megrims or melancho-ly!” (Line 19). The alliteration in those last two examples further link words that already have similar meanings.
Dialogue
The poem is written almost entirely in dialogue, which is direct speech presented as an interchange between two characters. The two characters define themselves by what they say and how they say it. There is also a narrator, who plays a very small role, adding after ’Melia’s rejoinder at the end of each stanza, “she said.” The dialogue conveys the character, attitudes, and apparent social position of the two women.
End-Stopped and Enjambment
The lines are mostly end-stopped, which means that each line forms a complete unit in terms of grammatical structure and sense. In contrast, there are three enjambed lines, also known as run-on lines, in which the sentence or grammatical unit continues smoothly without a pause into the following line. The reader must get to the following line to grasp the meaning. Examples include, “And ‘thik oon,’ and ‘theäs oon,’ and ‘t’other’; but now / Your talking quite fits ’ee for high compa-ny!” (Lines 10-11), and, “And you’d sigh, and you’d sock; but at present you seem / To know not of megrims or melancho-ly!” (Lines 18-19). The final two lines of the poem might also be considered to be enjambed, in spite of the fact that the penultimate line ends with a comma, since the sense is only completed in the line that follows: “‘My dear—a raw country girl, such as you be, / Cannot quite expect that. You ain’t ruined,’ said she” (Lines 23-24).
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