The Poetry Of Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson was an American poet, born in Massachusetts on December 10, 1830. Emily later fell in love with a married preacher. He then, moved away with his family. It has been said that after that happened Emily became a recluse. Emily’s poems are unique because she uses unusual punctuation, for example she used dashes in place of commas. Although, her poems were very good she made her family promise her that they would burn them after she died. Emily died on May 15, 1886, her family then decided they would publish all of her poems. She wrote almost 1800 poems in total. Her poems often had themes of death and some of her poems were about love too.
In her poem, “Why Do I Love” You, Sir? The theme is love. She is deeply with someone, but they could not be together because of religious reasons and she was scared of what others would say about them. Dickinson randomly capitalized some of the letters in this poem, she also used dashes instead of periods. This showed that she was not scared to brake rules and was not afraid to be different from the other poets. In the first stanza, she kept asking why did she love. In the next line she replies with because and leaves it at that. The next few lines Dickinson brouded her response, “The Wind dos not require the Grass / To answer-Wherefore when He pass / She cannot keep Her place.” (3-5) here, she is explaining that her and her lover are so tightly bonded together that they do not even have to talk to each other, they just know. She uses a metaphor to compare their tight bond to the wind and the grass, how they do not have to answer to one another. She also said that she could not control her emotions when she was around this person because she is utterly in love.
In the second st...

... middle of paper ...

...r very uncomfortable. Then someone else who died for the truth was placed in there with her. In the second stanza the man tells the woman that they are both the same. He tells her that they are family. In the last stanza, it says they met each other every night to talk and comforted each other. When Dickinson writes, “Until the moss had reached our lips, / And covered up our names” (11-12) it meant that they have come to terms with death and have passed on.
The rhyme scheme for this poem is ABCB. The meter in this poem in the first and third lines is iambic tetrameter and the second and fourth lines are iambic trimeter. The poem is trying to tell us that it does not matter who you are or who you know everyone is going to die one day. Also, everyone will be forgotten at a point, the moss represents the two characters letting go of their memories and accepting death.