The Letters Of Emily Dickinson Literary Devices

574 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Poetic analysis of emily dickinson

The speaker poses a very familiar question, if you knew you were going to die would you tell anyone or keep it to yourself? In this case, the speaker will not say a word. The Riddle represents the passageway from this world to the next, and the speaker will walk through it without letting anyone know anything at all. Except for the first tetrameter line, the poem is written in iambic trimeter which gives the poem a light, sing-songy quality. The first stanza starts out with the speaker reasoning that it would be too difficult for them to confess to the garden and the Bee. In this context, the Bee symbolizes God, or the spirit of nature, as it watches over and pollinates everything. The speaker does not believe they would have the strength to announce their departure to the garden. The Bees lives in the garden, and in breaking it to the Bee, the speaker believes it would affect not only the garden but all that live in it. In her life, Dickinson was known more for her garden than for her poetry, and greatly valued the time she spent there. In The Letters of Emily Dickinson in a letter to Susie, Dickinson states, that the “Earth, so like to heaven, that I would hesitate, should the true one call away” (195). …show more content…

It is here that we suddenly recognize the irony between the tone and the subject matter. The last word of the second stanza is 'die' which lands with a very harsh tone to bring the irony of the poem to

Show More
Related

  • Jeremy and Adam Songs

    1086 Words  | 3 Pages

    The first stanza describes a morbid drawing that Jeremy is creating. This could be a setup for the listener to understand that Jeremy is depressed and is thinking of death. More accurately, the drawing is of Jeremy standing on top of a mountain with his arms outstretched toward the sun. At the base of the mountain is a pool of blood and dead people. The sun could symbolize the brightness and peace after death. Maybe Jeremy thought that d...

    Read More

  • The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost

    959 Words  | 2 Pages

    On the surface the poem seems to be a meditation on past events and actions, a contemplative reflection about what has gone on before. Research into the poem informs us that the poem is written with a sense of irony

    Read More

  • I Heard A Fly Buzz Analysis Essay

    728 Words  | 2 Pages

    The second stanza of the poem says, “The Eyes around–had wrung them dry– / And Breaths were gathering firm / For that last Onset–when the King Be witnessed–in the Room–” (Dickinson, 203). The speaker imagines that as she lays dying, about to take her last breath, the “Breaths,” or her family and friends, will gather around, try to be strong, and wait for a “last Onset,” or final witness, or spiritual experience before she dies. The speaker feels that the living “Breaths” will expect the speaker to witness “the King,”–God or Jesus Christ–as she accepts God, and embraces death to move on to the afterlife. However, the next stanza reveals the speakers true

    Read More

  • Theme Of Gothic Romanticism In Nathaniel Hawthorne's 'Thanatopsis'

    996 Words  | 2 Pages

    Predominantly the poem offers a sense of comfort and wisdom, against the fear and pain associated with death. Bryant shows readers not to agonize over dying, in fact, he writes, "When thoughts of the last bitter hour come like a blight over thy spirit, and sad images of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, and breathless darkness, and the narrow house, make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart -- go forth under the open sky, and list to Nature 's teachings." With this it eludes each person face their own death, without fright, to feel isolated and alone in death but to find peace in knowing that every person before had died and all those after will join in death (Krupat and Levine

    Read More

  • An Interpretation of Emily Dickinson's Poem I Felt a Funeral in My Brain

    447 Words  | 1 Pages

    This stanza shows that the narrator is still bored with the living world even in death.

    Read More

  • The Last Night That She Lived

    956 Words  | 2 Pages

    The speaker started the poem by desiring the privilege of death through the use of similes, metaphors, and several other forms of language. As the events progress, the speaker gradually changes their mind because of the many complications that death evokes. The speaker is discontent because of human nature; the searching for something better, although there is none. The use of language throughout this poem emphasized these emotions, and allowed the reader the opportunity to understand what the speaker felt.

    Read More

  • We Wear the Mask

    1514 Words  | 4 Pages

    To begin, the sound of this poem can be proven to strongly contribute an effect to the message of this piece. This poem contains a traditional meter. All of the lines in the poem except for lines nine and 15 are in iambic tetrameter. In this metric pattern, a line has four pairs of unstressed and stressed syllables, for a total of eight syllables. This is relevant in order for the force of the poem to operate dynamically. The poem is speaking in a tenor of veiled confessions. For so long, the narrator is finally speaking up, in honesty, and not holding back. Yet, though what has been hidden is ultimately coming out, there is still this mask, a façade that is being worn. In sequence, the last words in each of the lines, again, except for lines nine and 15, are all in rhythm, “lies, eyes, guile, smile, subtleties, over-wise, sighs, cries, arise, vile...

    Read More

  • After Great Pain, A Formal Feeling Comes--

    552 Words  | 2 Pages

    The second stanza brings with it the second stage of the ceremony, carrying off the casket by pallbearers.The Feet, mechanical, go round--A wooden wayOf Ground, or Air, or Ought--Regardless grown,A Quartz contentment, like a stone--The feet of the pallbearers work rhythmically and mechanically, performing their duty. The final stanza includes the final stage of a funeral,the burial.This is the Hour of Lead--Remembered, if outlived,As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow--First--Chill--then Stupor--then the letting go-- The reader notes that this is the time of finality, and of parting with the deceased. It is also a time of final recollections, and of healing.In an interpretation of this poem, Dickinson is neither speaking of the persona, or the funeral ritual, but instead of the state of mind at death. This perception includes the premise of one who has lost all sense of identity.

    Read More

  • Emily Dickinson Diction

    516 Words  | 2 Pages

    Dickinson uses an extended metaphor in her poem, “A Clock stopped” in order to represent how quickly time goes by and how it has the ultimate power of life or death of a living thing. Through her extensive abstract diction, Dickinson is able to portray an image of a person dying through descriptions of a clock malfunctioning and ultimately not being able to be fixed.

    Read More

  • Emily Dickinson's The Feet Of People Walking Home

    925 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Literary Analysis of Emily Dickinson's Poetry

    1056 Words  | 3 Pages

    waits as he takes the character through a journey before entering?Eternity? 24. The syllable of the syllable. Another word of importance is the term?passed?. Used many times, especially in the third stanza, has multiple meanings in the poem.

    Read More

  • A Critical Analysis of Judith Wright's 'the Killer'

    913 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the last line of the second stanza, the subject enters dramatically, accompanied by an abrupt change in the rhythm of the poem:

    Read More

  • Emily Dickinson's Poetry

    1016 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Emily Dickinson's Poetry she has a great interest with brief encounters and transition states of mind.

    Read More

  • Analysis of After Great Pain A Formal Feeling Comes by Emily Dickinson

    474 Words  | 1 Pages

    In After great pain, a formal feeling comes(341), Emily Dickinson offers the reader a transitus observation of the time just after the death of a loved one. Dickinson questions where one goes in the afterlife asking, 'Of Ground, or Air' or somewhere else (line 6)' We often remember those who die before us, as we ourselves, as morbid as it may be, with everyday, are brought closer to our own deaths. As used in most of her poetry, she continues in iambic meter with stressed then unstressed syllables. Dickinson, however, straying away from her norm of 8-6-8-6 syllable lines repeating, uses a seemingly random combination of ten, eight, six, and four syllables, with the entire first stanza of ten syllables per lines. Line three lends itself to ambiguity as Dickinson writes, 'The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,' he, refers to the heart, yet she doesn't specify exactly what he bore. Dickinson refers to the Quartz grave growing out of the ground as one dies, lending itself to a certain imagery of living after death (lines 8-9). Although the poem holds no humor, she stretches to find what goes on after death. As we get to the end of the process of letting go of the one dying, Dickinson reminds us of the figurative and literal coldness of death. The cold symbolizes an emotion and lifeless person as well as the lack of blood circulation.

    Read More

  • Emily Dickinson's Literary Analysis: They Shut Me Up In Prose

    718 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

More about The Letters Of Emily Dickinson Literary Devices

Open Document