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1. 
   jamie-wheeler Teacher
   College - Sophomore

   eNotes Editor

   Romanticism (with a capital "R") centered around the aesthetics of nature, and often compared the growth and development of animal and plant life to human life and behavior. 

   We see all of this at work in "A narrow fellow in the grass."  Here is the poem in its entirety:

   A narrow Fellow in the Grass
   Occasionally rides--
   You may have met Him--
   did you not
   His notice sudden is--
   
   The Grass divides as with a Comb--
   A spotted shaft is seen--
   And then it closes at your feet
   And opens further on--
   
   He likes a Boggy Acre
   A Floor too cool for Corn--
   Yet when a Boy, and Barefoot--
   I more than once at Noon
   
   Have passed, I thought, a Whip lash
   Unbraiding in the Sun
   When stooping to secure it
   It wrinkled, and was gone--
   
   Several of Nature's People
   I know, and they know me--
   I feel for them a transport
   Of cordiality--
   
   But never met this Fellow
   Attended, or alone
   Without a tighter breathing
   And Zero at the Bone--

   What surprises a good number of students is that this poem, a reflection of nature, is a reflection of human sexuality.  Read the poem in terms of male and female organs:  "The Grass divides as with a Comb-- /  A spotted shaft is seen, " an later, the sexual act completed, "It wrinkled, and was gone." 

   Romantic poets did not shy away from the fullness of the human experience.  Keats, Wordsworth, Shelley, and Blake were just a few who also lauded the physical. 

   Sources:

   http://www.enotes.com/narrow-fellow

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   Posted by jamie-wheeler on Friday March 21, 2008 at 12:51 PM
   
   

2. 
   amy-lepore Teacher
   High School - 12th Grade

   eNotes Editor

   Remember that a large part of the Romantic movement involves nature.  Imagination, the supernatural, the individual over society as a whole, and emotion as opposed to reason are other aspects of Romanticism.  

   In Emily's poems she often questions society as a whole, she is almost always commenting on nature (which she loved and spent much of her time outside in the gardens of her home).  This is especially true of "A Narrow Fellow in the Grass" which is a commentary on the snake that she watches pass by her.

   Sources:

   http://www.enotes.com/dickinson

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   Posted by amy-lepore on Friday March 21, 2008 at 12:55 PM