I heard a Fly buzz—when I died— (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Emily Dickinson
- First Published: 1896
- Type of Work: Dramatic monologue
- Genres: Poetry
- Subjects: Death or dying
The Poem
Emily Dickinson did not give titles to most of her poems. They are usually labeled by their first lines, and her modern editor, Thomas H. Johnson, has numbered them according to his conclusions about their order of composition (this poem is numbered 465). Publications of the poem before Johnson’s The Poems of Emily Dickinson (1955) are usually of the text as it was altered by Mabel Loomis Todd when she published Poems: Third Series (1896).
“I heard a Fly buzz—when I died—” consists of four stanzas, with Dickinson’s characteristic slant-...
[The entire page is 1535 words long]
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