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Emily Dickinson
Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson are considered to be, not only the two best poets of the nineteenth century, but also the two best poets that the United States has ever produced. Of course, this,...
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Emily Dickinson
It's difficult to think of any two poems that could be further apart than the self-effacing "I'm Nobody" and the celebration of self in "Song of Myself." One is brief, the other lengthy. The voice...
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Emily Dickinson
This sounds like a challenging and fun assignment, and I have some advice for you. If you choose "Wild Nights," for example, begin by reading the poem closely and annotating it. Looking at an...
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Reference
Firstly, I can recommend two excellent biographies of Dickinson to help you: The Life of Emily Dickinson by Richard B. Sewall, which is the seminal biography of Dickinson, and My Wars Are Laid Away...
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Emily Dickinson
The tone of "I taste a liquor never brewed" is that of mystical ecstasy. The narrator compares the joy of a summer's day to the joy of being drunk. In the second stanza, she calls herself "an...
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Emily Dickinson
If I were writing a piece in response to Emily Dickinson's "My Life had stood—a Loaded Gun," I would most certainly have introduced the main idea of the poem in my introduction, especially in my...
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Emily Dickinson
In her poem "I Felt a Funeral in my Brain," Dickinson describes the movements of a funeral disturbing the narrator's mind. Mourners are moving back and forth inside her head, and the service is...
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Emily Dickinson
One can find apostrophe, metonymy, and possibly synecdoche in this poem by Emily Dickinson. Apostrophe is a dramatic or formal address, often to an inanimate object, such as , "O Life!" However, it...
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Emily Dickinson
Both Whitman and Dickinson were American individualists. Dickinson was the more conservative of the two. She lived a rather reclusive life and rarely left the house. In a similar fashion, her poems...
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Emily Dickinson
This nature riddle by Emily Dickinson was published in The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson in 1924, and in that version, the answer was provided beneath the poem in parentheses. The poem...
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Emily Dickinson
At first glance, you would think there would not be many: Dickinson wrote comparatively tiny poems that fiercely articulated a turbulent internal life; her intended audience, if there was one...
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Emily Dickinson
There is an element of mystery surrounding the subject of Emily Dickinson’s poetry, her desire (or lack of desire) to see her works published, and whether her poems were published with or without...
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Emily Dickinson
Although it is tempting to attribute the sentiments of this poem or any such poem written in first person to the author herself, readers must take care not to do so. In this case, Emily Dickinson...
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Emily Dickinson
"Lost" is composed of two quatrains. Given that the speaker is talking about loss, it could be considered a lament. Laments are characterized by the loss of something or a loved one. This poem also...
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Emily Dickinson
Waiting for your beloved in the uncertainty of his or her return could be the most tormenting experience. The speaker is undergoing precisely the same agony. She’s not sure when her beloved is...
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Emily Dickinson
The simple answer is that the subject of this poem is a description of hope. By comparing hope to a little bird, Dickinson describes what it is without actually saying what she is doing. The first...
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Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson's poem "There Is No Frigate Like a Book" is a perfect vehicle to expound upon the importance of reading to the development of the mind. Dickinson was a recluse, someone who seldom,...
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Emily Dickinson
In this poem, Emily Dickinson characterizes hope as a bird. Nature metaphors, particularly involving birds and flowers, are common throughout her poetry. Notice, though, how Hope is in quotation...
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Emily Dickinson
I think the challenge in reading Dickinson is to avoid the temptation of trying to "decode" her meaning. To me, her poems are more about tone and emotion. It is as if she is using words to try to...
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Emily Dickinson
Whether Emily Dickinson was a feminist poet depends on the definition of feminism one uses. In one sense, "feminism" means to participate in organized activity advocating for women's rights and...
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Emily Dickinson
The final stanza is a continuation of an extended figurative comparison that begins a couple of lines before the final stanza. The full comparison states: And he unrolled his feathers, And rowed...
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Emily Dickinson
In Emily Dickinson's poem "Because I could not stop for Death," the speaker in the poem is picked up in a carriage by Death and Immortality. The carriage drives slowly past symbols of her childhood...
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Emily Dickinson
Reading these two Dickinson poems gives you insight on how the poet views death. Reading each poem alone, you might not get the same understanding of death. In "Because I could not stop for...
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Emily Dickinson
In "Success is counted sweetest," Dickinson writes: Not one of all the purple Host Who took the Flag today Can tell the definition So clear of victory In this context, "purple Host" refers to a...
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Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson wrote many poems about death. Two of the most unusual of them are "Because I could not stop for Death" (479) and "I heard a Fly buzz - when I died" (591). Both of these poems relate...
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Emily Dickinson
Let's start with the easier—the explicit. Our speaker starts by saying that she literally heard a fly buzz when she died. Move to stanza two and we learn that the room gets quiet and it would...
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Emily Dickinson
Literary elements used in American poet Emily Dickinson's poem “There’s been a Death in the Opposite House” include the following: Stanzas A stanza is a poem unit. They’re typically...
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Emily Dickinson
Emily's father Edward was a strict, rigid and ethical New England lawyer. He took fatherhood seriously and demanded obedience from his children. Growing up, Emily was a little afraid of him. For...
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Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson was a prolific poet who wrote on a wide variety of topics; however, some of her recurrent themes are nature, death, love, and emotions, especially grief. Examples of her nature...
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Emily Dickinson
It is absolutely true that Emily Dickinson explores the notion that humans cannot understand or tame nature in her poem "A Bird came down the Walk." In this poem, the speaker observes a bird on a...
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Emily Dickinson
Because this question is very general, I will focus on two poems in which I think Dickinson focuses expressly on individuality and on the importance of privacy. Based on what we know for certain...
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Emily Dickinson
To demonstrate how to assign a rhyme scheme to any poem, let's take this one by Emily Dickinson (39): I never lost as much but twice - And that was in the sod. Twice have I stood a beggar Before...
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Emily Dickinson
In Emily Dickinson’s “I dwell in Possibility,” she writes through a first person narrator who lives with the understanding that all things are possible. This seems a contradiction because...
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Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson's poem beginning with the line "It dropped so low -- in my Regard" is open to a wide variety of interpretations.One thing we can note is that she juxtaposes concrete objects with...
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Emily Dickinson
One good way to approach the assignment is as a compare and contrast essay. What all the four poems have in common is that they contain treatments of death, but they address the topic quite...
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Emily Dickinson
"Bliss" is quite a strong word because it can mean a state of perfect happiness. But Dickinson calls it a "daily bliss" meaning it can or does happen every day. This sounds like Heaven on Earth,...
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Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson both revere nature, though for markedly different reasons. To Whitman, nature is the essence of all knowledge for man- if he will only pay attention to it. Whitman...
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Emily Dickinson
There are actually no literary terms found in Emily Dickinson's poem "The Battlefield," but perhaps you mean to ask about literary devices? When you ask about terms, you are actually asking about...
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The Ponder Heart
"Heart, we will forget" is one of Miss Dickinson's shorter poems, a poem written in apostrophe to her heart, which she personifies. The speaker of the poem calls upon the heart to help her to erase...
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Emily Dickinson
This question, of course, calls for a personal reaction on the part of the student as poetry so often touches a reader because of a commonality of experience, an emotive connection, or a certain...
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Emily Dickinson
You could compare the poetic rhythms of the two poems. Dickinson's poem for example uses the same rhythm and meter that all of her poems use. Crane's poem, on the other hand, is free verse. You...
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Emily Dickinson
Getrude Stein published "Patriarchal Poetry" in 1927, a work of poetry that challenged a systematized and tradition-dominated Western literature. According to scholars Karen Ford and Krzysztov...
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Emily Dickinson
First, you must understand that we can never truly know the answer to this question. Why? Because we can't ask Emily. Further, no one ever asked her during her lifetime, either. Therefore, your...
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Emily Dickinson
I dwell in Possibility - A fairer House than Prose - More numerous of Windows - Superior - for Doors - Of Chambers as the Cedars - Impregnable of Eye - And for an Everlasting Roof The Gambrels of...
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Emily Dickinson
1. Emily Dickinson's poem "I Dwell in Possibility" is an extended metaphor; that is, the verses all contribute to a comparison between two unlike things, a comparison that extends, or continues...
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Emily Dickinson
In "I heard a Fly buzz" (465), the speaker is on her deathbed. She begins by saying that she heard a fly buzz when she died, then describes the physical details of the environment. The room was...
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Emily Dickinson
Assonance is a poetic term which refers to the repetition of an internal vowel sound within a line or lines of poetry, and it serves as a kind of internal rhyme. Please note that the definition...
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Emily Dickinson
The short poem known as "May-Flower" by Emily Dickinson is full of compact nature images. When we look at the four you listed, only one of them is most associated with spring. Here are all four...
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Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson has a characteristic ability to compress information and, in so few words, encourages the reader to imagine her perspective revealing far more than meets the eye. In What Mystery...
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Because I could not stop for Death—
Dickinson's "Because I could not stop for Death--" (ca. 1863) is often considered her finest poem. In fact, Allen Tate, himself one of the finest American poets of the 20thC., thought that...