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Emily Dickinson punctuation
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I think her unusual punctuation and capitalization adds and distracts to her poetry at the same time. Her choice of writing adds to her poetry by giving us a glimpse of what Emily Dickinson was feeling at the time she wrote those poems. I also don’t think that she meant for most of her work to be read. I believe the main reason she had the filing system was to go back and correct the mistakes that she had made but since she had written so many poems maybe she never got around to completing them correctly.
On the other hand, I also believe that some her unusual punctuation and capitalization may have been put into her poems for a reason. She may have purposely done those things to emphasize a thought in her poem or mean something that we have
no know knowledge of. Her poems were sometimes distracting, because of her choice of punctuation and capitalization made it difficult to read. For this reason, I do think that we should clean up her poems to them easier to read. Especially, when her work is being studied in a classroom setting. I think if we had the corrections of her work it would definitely make her work easier to understand. For the best understanding of her poetry, I think they should be studied side by side in order to get the true original meaning, as well as the corrected version to better understand what Emily Dickinson meant by her work.
Emily Dickinson develops the central idea of madness throughout her poem by using capitalization of keywords that develop the central idea as well as using repetition of words that help to show how the narrator is insane and getting more and more so throughout the poem. She starts using repetition in the first
Dickinson refers to “the Majority” as society, this Majority does not take women’s literature seriously. The vast majority of good literature is composed by men and it is extremely rare for a woman to create a masterpiece. Dickinson’s highly unusually writing style was her self-expression at its finest. Her use of capitalization and hyphens was deemed as unnecessary by many, but to her it was completely necessary to express her emphasis. Unfortunately, she was unable to obtain recognition during her lifetime. When her poetry was first published many changes were made so that it would meet the current standards. Little did anyone know that the true strength of her poetry lied within her unique style. Only when her work was published in it’s original form did Dickinson start to receive recognition as a pioneer. Dickinson writes” Assent – and you are sane- Demur – your straightway dangerous – And handled with a Chain –" (Lines 5-7) If one was to conform to standards then they would be considered normal. However, if one strayed away from norms they would be deemed outcasts. “Much Madness is divinest Sense” (line 1) meant that madness was true free thinking and
for example, in the poem "This is My Letter to the World," she capitalized the
Dickinson, on the other hand, was a free-style writer. She was carefree of how her writings do not include any type of meter or structure. She did not use standard punctuation. Instead, she referred to the use of dashes, unsystematic capitalization, and broken meter. It is not clear as to why she chose such a unique style of writing, but it worked for her. She was not concerned with correctness but with structure that would include considerate features. In “Defrauded I a Butterfly,” Dickinson left little room for meter or style used from European models in her time being it only consisted on two lines. Also, in “I’m Nobody! Who Are You?” the reader may recognize that the she did not use a traditional rhyme scheme that would usually be able to identify in poetry. She used AABC instead of the more noticeable and most often used ABAB or a more rare scheme ABCB.
Throughout history society has depicted the “outsider” as the non-conformist. This non-conformist persona usually has negative attributes attached to it, therefore, no one wants to be correlated with it. For this reason, it is believed that the non-conformist poses danger to society because they may cause a collapse in its structure. Yet, a “mad” society meaning a society that poses danger to the outsider creates justification to their non conformity. In Emily Dickinson’s poem “Much Madness is Divinest Sense” she demonstrates how a “mad” society causes destruction on the non-conformist.
Emily Dickinson’s poems, “I” and “VIII”, are both three verses long and convey the irony and anguish of the world in different ways. By paraphrasing each of Dickinson’s poems, “I” and “VIII”, similarities and differences between the two become apparent. Putting the poem into familiar language makes it easier to comprehend.
I have heard people say that Emily Dickinson used dashes whenever she could not find the words to fully express what she meant. While this is true in one sense, it is preposterous in another. Dickinson's careful and clever choice of words does not seem to be consistent with someone who would simply enter a dash once at a loss for words. Punctuation is a necessary tool for all writers to create an effect that words alone can not. In “I died for beauty,” the dashes force the reader to pause at certain moments to intensify the suspense and sheer gravitas of what is being said. For example, in the opening line “I died for Beauty—but was scarce,” there is no word that could be placed in this line to more strongly convey the narrator's death for beauty to ...
Emily Dickinson has a characteristic writing style. Dickinson’s use of dashes and “randomly” placed capital letters throughout her work give her a unique style that is contradictory to her time. Many believe that it was her genius that caused this while still others believes it was her illness that contributed to her characteristic writing style. Lyndall Gordon's biography “offers a major revelation: evidence that Dickinson suffered from epilepsy. The author makes her case partly through prescriptions that Dickinson received (the papers still survive) and reinterprets poems such as "I felt a Cleaving in my Mind" to describe the poet's condition. She writes that ‘sickness is a more sensible reason for seclusion than disappointed love.’ Epilepsy carried a stigma, and Gordon explains that because diagnosis was ‘rarely uttered, still less put on paper, there's little chance of explicit evidence’” (Ciuraru). “Gordon makes a persuasive case for the link between epilepsy's visual and cerebral distortions and Dickinson's extraordinary language” (Showalter). By examining the imagery, diction, symbolism and tone in the poems “I Felt a Funeral in my Brain”, “I Felt a Cleaving in my Mind” and “Pain”, the reader can decipher the characteristics of Emily’s illness brought out in her writing.
Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost both think that individuality is very important to a person equally like Ralph Emerson. Although they may have a lot in common these poets are different in many ways. Both Frost and Dickinson were American poets and were both from New England. A big similarity between Frost and Dickinson both talk about death. Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost both talk about the power of nature in their poetry. Frost and Dickinson have a reasonable evidence on why human beings should live life to their own agenda but, what if that person cannot stop living somebody else dreams? How can these poems help people break away for society and become a strong confidence individual person?
Emily Dickinson lived in an era of Naturalism and Realism (1855-1910). She lived in a period of The Civil War and the Frontier. She was affected by her life and the era she lived in. She also had many deaths in her family and that’s part of the reason that she was very morbid and wrote about death.
In conclusion, it can be stated the examples of Emily Dickinson's work discussed in this essay show the poetess to be highly skilled in the use of humor and irony. The use of these two tools in her poems is to stress a point or idea the poetess is trying to express, rather than being an end in themselves. These two tools allow her to present serious critiques of her society and the place she feels she has been allocated into by masking her concerns in a light-hearted, irreverent tone.
the year that one of the most influential poets in the world was born. Emily
The poetry of Emily Dickinson is one of the most recognizable of the 19th century. Dickinson’s poetry stands out because of its unconventional use of capitalization and punctuation. Her poems contain capitalized words which are not normally capitalized. Her poems are noted for the frequent use of the dash. Literary scholars have attempted to interpret Dickinson’s unconventional capitalization and punctuation. Some believe that it was merely part of Dickinson’s penmanship (Weisbuch 73). They therefore edit Dickinson’s poetry and publish them in standardized form. Others believe that the capitalization and punctuation were a conscious effort on Dickinson’s part. These scholars notice the little nuances of Dickinson’s dashes, such as whether it slants up or down (Miller 50). They notice the different sizes of her capital letters (Miller 58). These scholars believe that Dickinson’s poetry is best understood when read in their handwritten form.
Emily Dickinson, a radical feminist is often expressing her viewpoints on issues of gender inequality in society. Her poems often highlight these viewpoints. Such as with the case of her poem, They shut me up in Prose. Which she place herself into the poem itself, and address the outlining issues of such a dividend society. She is often noted for using dashes that seem to be disruptive in the text itself. Dickinson uses these disruption in her text to signify her viewpoints on conflictual issues that reside in society. From the inequality that women face, to religion, to what foreseeable future she would like to happen. All of her values and morales are upheld by the dashes that Dickinson introduces into her poems.
Emily Dickinson, who achieved more fame after her death, is said to be one of the greatest American poets of all time. Dickinson communicated through letters and notes and according to Amy Paulson Herstek, author of “Emily Dickinson: Solitary and Celebrated Poet,” “Writing was the way she kept in touch with the world” (15). Dickinson’s style is unique and although unconventional, it led to extraordinary works of literature. Dickinson lived her life in solitude, but in her solitude she was free to read, write and think which led to her nonconformity and strong sense of individualism. Suzanne Juhasz, a biographer of Dickinson, sums up most critics’ idea of Dickinson ideally: “Emily Dickinson is at once the most intimate of poets, and the most guarded. The most self-sufficient, and the neediest. The proudest, and the most vulnerable. These contradictions, which we as her readers encounter repeatedly in her poems, are understandable, not paradoxical, for they result from the tension between the life to which she was born and the one to which she aspired” (1). Dickinson poured her heart and soul into over 1,700