The Interpretation Of Emily Dickinson's Poetry

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Emily Dickinson’s poems are giving ample scope for interpretation. At first glance her poems seem simple to interpret because of her brevity but exactly that is what leaves space for phantasy and offers the opportunity for different interpretations. What she really means is therefore vague and difficult to grasp. Through her over usage of dashes, which might dramatize her thoughts, the reader’s power of imagination is induced and he or she is able to accomplish the poem with own ideas. Dashes appear at the end or even within a poem, it could connect both parts, beforehand and afterward, is a caesura, the pause in a line of a verse, or even an ellipsis. Because of all three options it is also difficult to figure out what Dickinson’s intention …show more content…

The first stanza is rhymed abcb and the second defe. Wolosky mentions that Emily Dickinson wrote almost all of her poetry in this hymnal verse form – but almost always for purposes other than those of the church hymn. In this poem, Dickinson used various meters: the common iambic and even hymn meter, it shows that “Dickinson was a consummate metrist” (Cooley 84). For example, verse one, three, five, and seven have the hymnal feet ux ux uux ux, whereas u is the unstressed and x the stressed syllable. The feet of line two and six is an iambic tetrameter (ux ux ux ux) where an unstressed syllable is followed by a stressed. The fourth and eighth line follow the feet ux ux ux (u), whereas the last unstressed syllable appears only in the fourth and the last verse therefore is a trimeter (Meyer 46). Her usage of dashes and the different meters in this poem furnishes evidence for her reasoning is not finalized or even inscribed and that the lines must proceed. With the help of the reader’s imagination the line of thought can be accomplished in different possible ways. Through these incomplete rhyme schemes and abrupt stress patterns the openness of Emily Dickinson’s poems are supported. Because of the poem’s brevity they seem simple to interpret at first glance but exactly that is what makes it difficult to grasp. Emily Dickinson let it open therefore it could signify

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