Certain Slant Of Light Flashcards
What form is used to show ambiguity
Elliptical form(use of ceasura) (shows also that some things are ineffable)
What does Dickinson wrestle with
Langue and it’s possibilities
Why does Dickinson wrestle with the languages possibilities and inadequacies
It gives the sense to the reader that they are following someone’s thoughts (intimate form)
Key techniques
Oxymoron, mix of concrete and abstract language, synaesthesia, defamiliarisation
Key themes
Religion, nature and death
Explain ‘there’s a certain slant of light’
Difficult to comprehend because light is usually a collective object not described in individual strands.
(Implies she’s seen it before)
Explain ‘heavenly hurt, it gives us’
Oxymoronic- heaven should give salvation, not pain. Religion is complicated by subversive treatment of light.
Battling non belief- apostasy
Explain ‘where the meanings are’
Imply that ‘heavenly hurt’ brings meaning (supporting the belief that we experience pain in order to appreciate what we have)
Explain ‘none may teach it - any’
Defamiliarises the light and forces the reader to see it with a difference. We question something we encounter everyday, and Dickinson forces us to look at light differently. (We are surrounded by light but we cannot fully understand it and so can’t teach it)
‘An imperial affliction’
Light is an eminently powerful force
Explain ‘when it comes the landscape listens/shadows hold their breath’
Highlights symbiotic relationship between light and nature. It illuminates the landscapes and for shadows to exist light must also. Light should be viewed as transcendent
Explain ‘when it goes,’tis like the distance on the look of death’
Light leaves the eyes following death. On a deeper level, the ‘death’ she mentions could be of understanding as we can’t understand the nature of light
What is interesting about the structure
Because the final stanza explores the coming and going of light immediately after each other- shows it’s cynical nature
What links with religion does this have with other poems
I heard a fly buzz, I felt a funeral in my brain, the last night she lived
What other poems does defamiliarisation link to
Fly buzz, last night she lived or defamiliarisation of any nature poem
