I Taste A Liquor Never Brewed

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Recommended: Emily Dickinson poetic capitalization policy

Emily Dickinson did not give titles to most of her poems, so they are generally referred to by their first lines. The editor of the 1955 edition of her poems, Thomas H.Johnson, attempted to number them according to the order of their composition; " I taste a liquor never brewed-" is listed as number 214. Dickinson sometimes left alternate versions of her poems, and the versions discussed here is what Johnson believed to be her final one. " I taste a liquor never brewed-" consists of four stanzas, the second and fourth lines rhyming in each quatrain. This is a poem of visionary experience in which the richness of a natural setting in summer is the cause. Speaking in her own lyric voice , Dickinson describes the exhilaration of going outdoors in summer in terms of getting drunk in traven.

Dickinson uses alcohol and drunkenness as the vehicle of a metaphor about the beauty and awe inspiring quality of a nature. Maybe she goes a little Pinkie Pie about the whole thing but she's trying to make a point. On one hand, Dickinson's declarations at sincere but the hyperbole of the poem reminds us that, even in good things there should be moderation.

In the first line, Dickinson jumps right in with both feet by …show more content…

In fact in another version of poem , line 3 is changed to "Not all the Vats upon the Rhine", giving us a preety good idea that she's talking about the wine from this area. Whatever the speaker is enjoying, it must be something quite special, since all the finest wine in the Rhine valley can't even come close to the quality of liquor that it produces. If we read the poem very closely , we find that "pearl" and "alcohol" are sort of rhyme. They have the same ending sound(L) ,anyway. That's what called in the poetry biz 'slant rhyme'. It's not quite a full rhyme, but there is an

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