as imperceptibly as grief Flashcards
who wrote the poem?
Emily Dickinson
what are the main themes of the poem?
- loss
- passage of time
- pain
- change and transformation
- nature (?)
what are the possible links?
- to autumn (time w imagery of the seasons and the natural world)
- afternoons (time w imagery of the seasons)
- a wife in london (loss)
- prelude (natural world - a bit weak)
- DoaN (natural world - a bit weak)
what is the poem about?
her fear of death, feeling tricked by time passing, her happiness disappearing
poem starts by describing how summer ends so gradually you don’t notice when it finishes, end of summer represents the end of grief - suggests the grieving process ends so subtly that it creates another sense of loss
what is the form of the poem?
- the rhythm mirrors the pattern of everyday speech - making it sound like the narrator’s thoughts (iambic metre w mixture of trimeter and tetrameter)
why does Dickinson use long dashes?
she uses long dashes instead of the conventional punctuation to create long pause and enhance the poem’s slow reflective mood, also creates a hesitant and disjointed pace reflecting her own fractured state of mind
why is it only one stanza?
adds to the sense of gradual change
what is the poem made up of?
a series of natural metaphors
when does the speaker’s tone become more decisive?
around line 13, suggesting that she does come to term with the fact that grief ends
who is the speaker?
it is a persona, often interpreted as autobiographical because of the loss Dickinson had faced
what sort of language does the poem have?
- language of time
- light imagery
- contradictory images
what is the changing of seasons associated with?
the different stages of grief; the fact that this association remains throughout the poem reflects the slow, almost unnoticeable, way that time eases the speaker’s grief
what do the images of natural light remind the reader of?
they remind the reader that the natural cycle of day and night will continue forever. this sense of inevitability could also be applied to other natural cycles such as life and death and perhaps also to grief and acceptance
what do the contradictory images do?
they are surprising, and could suggest that grief is not entirely unpleasant, and that its end involves contradictory emotions
what are the main feelings and attitudes of the poem?
- loss
- comfort
what types of loss does the speaker experience in the poem?
- loss of summer
- grief after the loss of a loved one
- loss of grief
why is the title ‘as imperceptibly as grief’?
- word imperceptibly could suggest that no one notices the speaker’s pain and grief because it has happened so gradually
- ‘grief’ suggests that the pain is unbearable and overwhelming, grief is life changing
what are the first four lines of the poem?
As imperceptibly as Grief / The Summer lapsed away - / Too imperceptible at last / To seem like Perfidy -
why are the poem’s lines normally short?
gives the poem a sense of simplicity which could suggest a level of acceptance on the speaker’s part
what are the annotations of ‘as imperceptibly as Grief / The Summer lapsed away’?
- the speaker establishes a link between grief and summer which continue through the poem. the message about summer represents the speaker’s thoughts on grief
- imagery of summer could also represent happiness or the peak time in life
- the verb could represent that time is passing and the speaker is thinking that death is approaching
why does the third line echo the first line?
to emphasise the idea that both summer and grief can slip away unnoticed
what are the annotations of ‘to seem like Perfidy’?
- could suggest the speaker feels tricked by time/how fast the time/happiness is taken away
- could also suggest that although the speaker is sad that summer is ending and she doesn’t welcome the end, it’s not a betrayal - hints that she feels the same way about grief
what are the second group of four lines in the poem?
A Quietness distilled / As Twilight long begun, / Or Nature spending with herself / Sequestered Afternoon -
what are the annotations of ‘A Quietness distilled’
summer and grief are often associated with a sense of stillness and being closed off from the world. this is presented as comforting rather than isolating
