Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson

I taste a liquor never brewed
1. "Inebriate of air – am I – And Debauchee of Dew – "
  1. reckless, indulgent joy/pleasure; Nature theme
2. "inns of molten Blue –"
  1. metaphor, nature
3. "When Butterflies – renounce their “drams” – I shall but drink the more!"
  1. appreciate the beauty of nature until she can no more; joyfully determined; experience summer to the excess
4. "To see the little Tippler Leaning against the – Sun!"
  1. Alcohol is a metaphor for her happiness; Dash signifies never-ending happiness/summer; heaven
"Hope" is the thing with feathers
1. Hope=free, delicate/frail, never-ending, sustaining, selfless.. Personified to make it tangible (physical manifestation)
2. “Hope” is the thing with feathers - That perches in the soul -
  1. transcends words, permanently present deep in our being
3. And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
  1. courageous, cannot be "abashed", it's song is sweetest in the deepest times of turmoil; sympathy is shown for the fragile little "bird"
4. I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
  1. represents troubled times in terms os landscape; showing the great difficulties she suffered in her life (struggled with illness and depression)
5. Yet - never - in Extremity, It asked a crumb - of Me.
  1. personal reference, hope is selfless and makes no demands, never=absolute, full-stop=certainty (rare for Dickinson)
There's a certain Slant of light
1. sombre mood,Earthly suffering for Heavenly salvation, meditating her mortality
2. That oppresses, like the Heft Of Cathedral Tunes –
  1. Simile; heaviness, weighed down, melancholy, solemnity, seriousness
3. But internal difference – Where the Meanings, are –
  1. yet no physical evidence of pain, it is the realisation deep within that matters
4. Heavenly Hurt
  1. paradoxical, intense awareness of mortality/dying, this causes hurt for the poet
5. 'Tis the seal Despair – An imperial affliction
  1. Despair= strong, powerful; caused by a superior authority/supreme power?
6. When it goes, 'tis like the Distance On the look of Death –
  1. tense; maintain and intensify the gloomy mood; once the moment of oppression is gone death seems far away once more
I felt a Funeral, in my Brain
1. Rhythmic pattern, repetition, painful/strange experience, turmoil of Dickinson's mind, personal=use of "I" and "my"
2. And Mourners to and fro Kept treading - treading -
  1. harshness, restlessness, unease (repetition), first indication of "breaking"- breakdown/breaking of reason
3. Kept beating - beating - till I thought My mind was going numb -
  1. Rhyming of "drum" and "numb" gives a sense of one leading to another, repetition=emotional pain
4. creak across my Soul With those same Boots of Lead, again,
  1. mourners seem to cause pain, harsh/severe sounds, sense of inescapable, increasing pain
5. And I, and Silence, some strange Race,
  1. "wrecked, solitary", loneliness, strange and silent intensity, increasing isolation, sense of being different/abnormal
6. And then a Plank in Reason, broke, And I dropped down, and down -
  1. vivid immediacy, horrifying sight, downward spiral into depression? poem finished with a dash leaving a sense of uncertainty of the future
I heard a fly buzz - when I died
1. the buzzing fly is a distraction, trivializes a serious/unique moment, stillness is ominous
2. like the Stillness in the Air - Between the Heaves of Storm -
  1. Simile, eerily calm, unsure, anticipation of something violent/shocking
3. The Eyes around - had wrung them dry - And Breaths were gathering firm
  1. impersonal, waiting with bated breath for the next stage of the death/decay process
4. Signed away What portion of me be Assignable
  1. lucid, calm, wry (dry humour) until a fly "interposed"
5. uncertain stumbling Buzz - Between the light - and me -
  1. sense of chaos and directionless, fly signifies the first dying of the light
6. And then the Windows failed - and then I could not see to see -
  1. ending is dark, silent, isolate. no sense of hope, does not entertain the possibility of immortality
The Soul has Bandaged moments
1. investigation of the human condition (intangible) ->hope. Fright is personified. Contrast between suffering and joy
2. She feels some ghastly Fright come up And stop to look at her -
  1. fright is a threatening presence, the soul is personified as "She" and is seen as vulnerable
3. Sip, Goblin, from the very lips The Lover - hovered - o'er -
  1. unrequited love? cause for the soul to be wounded/bandaged? negative over takes postive
4. As do the Bee - delirious borne -
  1. the soul has escaped its confines, it is "abroad", and flying with excitement. Vivid contrast to earlier poems
5. With shackles on the plumed feet, And staples, in the song,
  1. physical manifestation evokes a sympathetic response in the reader. The soul seems imprisoned, hindered like a felon
6. The Horror welcomes her, again, These, are not brayed of Tongue -
  1. soul reverts to place of horror. Suggestion of how impossible it is to speak of her moments of depression/pain

Next up

Description

Resource summary

Similar

	Created by Éimear Buggy almost 9 years ago