Lady Lazarus

“Lady Lazarus” is written in free verse without any consistent meter, but the poet often utilizes metric variations to place an emphasis on a particular word or idea. The poem contains 28 stanzas consisting of tercets, which are stanzas of 3 lines each. This form slightly evokes a terza rima form, which Italian poet Dante Alighieri employed in his famous work The Divine Comedy. Although “Lady Lazarus'' is not a terza rima because it lacks the typical iambic meter and structured rhyme scheme the form requires, the association between this work and The Divine Comedy links ideas of heaven and hell and punishment and redemption, as well as the ability to journey into the afterlife and return to the world of the living. In addition, allusions to Christianity are also observable in the use of the three-line stanza which some scholars associate with the Holy Trinity. In “Lady Lazarus” however, the speaker does mention God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, referring instead only to an unholy trinity of “Herr Enemy” (Line 66), “Herr God” (Line 79), and “Herr Lucifer” (Line 79).