Reading Notes W8: Dickinson, Part A

Emily Dickinson, “poems: 216, 258, 303, 328, 341, 435, 449…” (480-490)

Emily Dickinson:

·         Strange

·         Never left her father’s house

·         Dressed only in white gowns

·         The 1880’s

·         Mysterious and a recluse

·         Began writing verse seriously in the 1850’s

·         She had two thousand poems hidden in a box

·         Her poems often included the themes of death, faith, and nature

·         She would take these themes and twist them into an unsettling nature

·         She uses meter and imagery often.

·         Meter= “quatrains that begin with one line of eight syllables followed by a line of six syllables, repeated to form an 8/6/8/6 pattern” (482)

·         Imagery= visual images/ visual description. Ex: “The stillness in the room was like the stillness in the air” (485). This is also using comparisons to create an image. Another example is: “Twas warm-at first-like us- until there crept upon a Chill-like frost upon a glass-till all the scene-be gone” (485).

·         She switches between rhymes. She uses perfect rhymes, slant rhymes, and even words that have somewhat of a resemblance but do not rhyme in the slightest.

·         Perfect rhyme example: “Babbles the Bee in a stolid Ear, Pipe the Sweet Birds in ignorant cadence- Ah what sagacity perished here!” (482). In this case, it is the words Ear/Here.

·         Slant Rhyme example: “Too silver for a seam- or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon, Leap, plashless as they swim” (484). In this case, it is the words Seam/Swim.

·         No resemblance example: “I heard a Fly buzz-when I died- the stillness in the room was like the stillness in the air” (485). In this case, the words Died/Air are used but have no resemblance yet they are used like a rhyme.

·         Death theme example: “Because I could not stop for Death-he kindly stopped for me-The carriage held but just ourselves-and immortality” (487). This revolves around the themes of death, faith, and nature. In this poem, we see talks about death and by what I get from this poem, are that it is like she is looking back on her life as she is dead. So it is like life is flashing before her eyes possibly.