In the poem “If you were Coming in the Fall” by Emily Dickinson, the author writes of a woman who is madly in love with a man. In the five stanza poem, Dickinson explains how the woman would put tremendous amounts of time to waste in the event of meeting this man. She starts by threatening to throw seasons, years, and even centuries away. Yet the man never comes to her. The theme of this poem is people cannot be trusted with possessions as great as time. The author helped me find the theme with her amazing form of attitude and gave me the ability to create a summary to help myself. Dickinson's great display of attitude really gave me a chance of figuring out the message she was giving out. In the second stanza, Dickinson says, “If I could
Her voice expresses the individual power to select the people whose opinions matter as well as who the individual lets in. “The Soul selects her own Society - / Then - shuts the Door - (354).” It also represents how the individual has the power to make choices independent from the majority view. Dickinson also voices that individualism can come along with unacceptance because you are not conforming yourself to the standards of society,“This is my letter to the World / That never wrote to Me - “ (This is my Letter to the World 354).
...Dickinson has for the most part conquered her fears. As the second poem gave us the unsettling idea that the author of the poem we were reading was afraid to compose poetry, this poem shows us her coming to terms with that. Her list of creatures blessed with wonders they had not dared to hope for extends quite naturally to include her. She has come to her “Heaven” through poetry—“unexpected”, but eventually with confidence brought about by the trials dealt with throughout the fascicle. The poems are very closely linked, each one showing us some new aspect of Dickinson’s personality that leads toward her confidence. Finally, Dickinson has found her voice and in this final poem proclaims that she has found a peace to which she had not dared aspire at the beginning. Now she has both nature and poetry within her grasp—this is “Heaven” and “Old Home” all at once.
This work shows a number of things about Dickinson's style of writing. Firstly, it is another example of Dickinson's style of structure, with a loose ABCB rhyme and iambic trimeter. Its theme is of hope which hints at a cry for help signifying further isolation and depression. The poem seems to have an audience of just herself. This could be a poem that she wrote in an attempt to cheer herself up in a time of sadness with an uplifting verse or just a poem written because of how she felt that day; either way it is clear that this poem was not designed for a large audience.
During her descriptions of insanity Dickinson says on lines 13-14 “As all the Heavens were a Bell, /And Being, but an Ear” which is very hard to follow because of the peculiar style of writing she has for this text. She capitalizes at non-proper places and the writing does not flow. Her writing is very radical because she is attempting to be in the shoes of an insane person. While thinking logically an insane person does not have the proper grammar or the ability to think straight. So an insane person’s writing would sound much like ‘I Felt a Funeral in my Brain’ because of the fact that insane people can’t produce technical pieces of art. Also, when at the end of the poem, Dickinson states on lines 15-16 “And I, and Silence, some strange Race, / -Wrecked, solitary, here-“it leaves many readers having to go back and read it again. The words seem to be placed in horrible spots and seem like bad writing. There was a big intention behind writing in these ways. Dickinson has a huge amount of wisdom when it came to this poem and the reason behind everything she did completely put it over the top for the expression of insanity. In actuality, there was a big purpose behind everything Dickinson did with the writing to make it convincing that the character was one hundred percent insane. Although Dickinson did a great job with convincing readers of insanity for the character, some
She chooses this arrangement of verse in order to ordain a religious aspect into the poem, which does well to suite the theme and what she is fond of. As the recollection of the speaker’s death progresses, Dickinson uses the stanzas to mark the stages of the
Emily Dickinson is one of the great visionary poets of nineteenth century America. In her lifetime, she composed more poems than most modern Americans will even read in their lifetimes. Dickinson is still praised today, and she continues to be taught in schools, read for pleasure, and studied for research and criticism. Since she stayed inside her house for most of her life, and many of her poems were not discovered until after her death, Dickinson was uninvolved in the publication process of her poetry. This means that every Dickinson poem in print today is just a guess—an assumption of what the author wanted on the page. As a result, Dickinson maintains an aura of mystery as a writer. However, this mystery is often overshadowed by a more prevalent notion of Dickinson as an eccentric recluse or a madwoman. Of course, it is difficult to give one label to Dickinson and expect that label to summarize her entire life. Certainly she was a complex woman who could not accurately be described with one sentence or phrase. Her poems are unique and quite interestingly composed—just looking at them on the page is pleasurable—and it may very well prove useful to examine the author when reading her poems. Understanding Dickinson may lead to a better interpretation of the poems, a better appreciation of her life’s work. What is not useful, however, is reading her poems while looking back at the one sentence summary of Dickinson’s life.
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.
...eart would split, but because she is able to see nature through her imagination she is safe from those effects, shown when she says, “So safer-guess-with just my soul” (18) While Emerson uses only sight to form a connection with nature, Dickinson uses both sight and imagination to connect people’s souls to nature when she says, “…with just my soul open the window pane”(19); the eyes are said to be the windows that lead to one’s soul, so through this statement Dickinson shows that there is a correlation between imagination, sight, and soul because through all of them one is able to become one with nature. Through the very act of writing this poem Dickinson reveals that poetic writing is another form of reaching oneness with nature.
Dickinson’s Christian education affected her profoundly, and her desire for a human intuitive faith motivates and enlivens her poetry. Yet what she has faith in tends to be left undefined because she assumes that it is unknowable. There are many unknown subjects in her poetry among them: Death and the afterlife, God, nature, artistic and poetic inspiration, one’s own mind, and other human beings.
The tone in the first stanza is of joyousness and excitement, as people make their way to heaven. Dickinson uses the words “gayer,” “hallelujah,” and “singing” to emphasize the uplifting feeling here. It could be argued that this is the point in the humans’ lives (or deaths, or afterlives, depending on how one looks at it) when they reach the pinnacle of happiness, for they have finally entered heaven. The humans, now dead, would then acquire wings, immortality, and an angelic status that rises far above that of humans. Much like Dickinson’s other poems, this one uses metaphors to represent similar things, such as “home,” which represents “heaven,” “snow,” which represents the “clouds” on which heaven resides, and “vassals,” which represents the “angels” who serve God.
Vendler, Helen. Dickinson: Selected Poems and Commentaries. President and Fellows of Harvard College, 2010. 118-20. Google Books. Google. Web. 5 April. 2014. .
Emily Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for Death” is a remarkable masterpiece that exercises thought between the known and the unknown. In Dickinson’s poem, “Because I could not stop Death,” there is much impression in the tone, in symbols and in the use of imagery that over flow with creativity. One might undoubtedly agree to an eerie, haunting, if not frightening, tone and use of symbolism in Dickinson’s poem.
Many of her poems were a reaction to the rejection of many publishers and other literary critics. This particular poem’s character comes from Dickinson’s reaction to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s statement that “poets are thus liberating gods.” Here she is challenging the established literati by questioning popular Emersonian views. In particular, this poem is a reaction to Emerson’s belief that “the poet is the sayer, the namer, and represents beauty.” Basically, it is a reaction to the idea that the poet is the creator of beautiful words, liberating the common people by giving them words they would not have access to.
Dickinson states, “Thought belong to Him who gave it --,” and presents the notion that all human thought is owned by God and that God is the individual that allows and gives us freedom of thought. If one was to publish the work that they produce and bear, they would be committing plagiarism as the words they would claim as their own would actually be God’s words, furthermore strengthening Dickinson’s case that publication is an evil and sinful act. The second half of the stanza states “Then – to Him Who bear It’s Corporeal illustration – sell The Royal air,” and Dickinson’s conflicted character is furthermore put on display. These lines are juxtaposed with the first as terms such as “corporeal” and “royal air” are used. Typically, when referring to God, one does not mix ideas of the flesh and royalty as they represent two the seven deadly sins, lust and greed.
“A Bird came down the Walk,” was written in c. 1862 by Emily Dickinson, who was born in 1830 and died in 1886. This easy to understand and timeless poem provides readers with an understanding of the author’s appreciation for nature. Although the poem continues to be read over one hundred years after it was written, there is little sense of the time period within which it was composed. The title and first line, “A Bird came down the Walk,” describes a common familiar observation, but even more so, it demonstrates how its author’s creative ability and artistic use of words are able to transform this everyday event into a picture that results in an awareness of how the beauty in nature can be found in simple observations. In a step like narrative, the poet illustrates the direct relationship between nature and humans. The verse consists of five stanzas that can be broken up into two sections. In the first section, the bird is eating a worm, takes notice of a human in close proximity and essentially becomes frightened. These three stanzas can easily be swapped around because they, for all intents and purposes, describe three events that are able to occur in any order. Dickinson uses these first three stanzas to establish the tone; the tone is established from the poet’s literal description and her interpretive expression of the bird’s actions. The second section describes the narrator feeding the bird some crumbs, the bird’s response and its departure, which Dickinson uses to elaborately illustrate the bird’s immediate escape. The last two stanzas demonstrate the effect of human interaction on nature and more specifically, this little bird, so these stanzas must remain in the specific order they are presented. Whereas most ...