as imperceptibly as grief

Question 1

author

Answer 1

emily dickinson

Question 2

context

Answer 2

• influenced by romantics
• experienced deaths of those around her a lot
• 19th century
• death of her mother

Question 3

structure

Answer 3

• no punctuation except dashes which break up lines, disconnected
• lack of dashes at the end suggests growth
• lack of rhyme, unexpected end, like the death of her mother

Question 4

paragraph 1

Answer 4

— gradual change, unnoticeable

• ‘as imperceptibly as grief, summer lapsed away’ - difficult to perceive, many stages, subtle change rather than concrete, symbolic of inner change, summer symbolises grief rather than happiness
• ‘to seem like perfidy as quietness distilled’ - too unnoticeable to seem treacherous
• ‘as twilight long begun’ - unnoticed until physical changes appeare

Question 5

paragraph 2

Answer 5

• beauty of death is compared to beauty of nature
• ‘our summer made her light escape into the beautiful’. - acceptance of death, and eventually going into heaven, light heart
• ‘the dusk drew in earlier - the morning foreign shone’ - dusk represents life and the beginning of the morning represents death. opposite of what would be expected, supports ‘shone’ shows beauty in death despite unfamiliarity