Death poems

Question 1

Because- form

Answer 1

Lyrical poem
6 quatrains
Common metre (alternating tetrameter and trimeter)

Question 2

Because- conceit

Answer 2

Death as a chivalric, kindly suitor
Death as an easeful carriage ride

Question 3

Because- intentions of Dickinson

Answer 3

Dickinson appropriates the Christian imagery of death as an easeful carriage ride in order to accentuate its darker nuances

Question 4

Because- V +Vs

Answer 4

Dickinson reflects steadfast unknowability + life’s inescapable ephemerality by with-holding confidence in resurrection

Question 5

Because- Contour 1 (stanzas 1-3 )

Answer 5

Aligns with Christian imagery of death as ostensibly blissful compared to effortful mortality / sentimental motif of death

Question 6

Because - Contour 2 (Stanza 4 and 5)

Answer 6

Mark a sudden shift- death is suddenly represented as a suffocating, cold pit > nihilistic fears of an eternity spent rotting in the ground

Question 7

Because- Contour 3 (Stanza 6)

Answer 7

Lapses into present tense- does little to resolve key tensions / reader does not know ontology or setting of the speaker/ D withholds final view of death

Question 8

Opposite House- form

Answer 8

lyric poem/ Line 20 resists attempts at regularization/ Common metre- otherwise very stable

Question 9

Opposite House- speaker

Answer 9

Presumptively male
Observing a provincial passing from a window across the street.

Question 10

Opposite House- contour 1

Answer 10

Death is domesticated as a ubiqutous reality/ also gothicised, made abject/ D accentuates death’s corporeality/ D appears to repudiate superficial routines of Ars moriendi

Question 11

Opposite House- contour 2

Answer 11

D exposes the fleeting nature of religious beliefs + customs which fail to contain and explain death’s mystery / rituals elide the gothic unknowability of death

Question 12

Opposite House- D’s intentions

Answer 12

Thus, as elsewhere in her mortuary poems, Dickinson suggests that no standardized procedure – domestic or religious- can dissipate the ghastliness of mortality nor alleviate its ineludibly stubborn nature.

Question 13

Opposite House- what statement

Answer 13

anonymous sp. interweaves Puritan obfuscation of death through inane rituals, with its darker nuancese

Question 14

Opposite House- effect of speaker + deceased being unnamed

Answer 14

Renders the experience universal

Question 15

To Know- Form

Answer 15

D. eschews common metre in favor of heroic quatrains, a convention of elegiac verse, to solemnise death
Consistent intrusion of trochaic rhythms

Question 16

To Know- Stanzas 1 and 2

Answer 16

Initiate the sp’s enquiries about her lover’s death
Keenly invested in GD rituals + seeks assurance about lover’s divine election
Align w trad. elegy as they accentuate the consolations of the Christian afterlife

Question 17

To Know- Stanzas 3,4,5

Answer 17

The question whether Heaven is the only consolation.
Human relationships take on a privileged position as they are based on mortality and vulnerability.

Question 18

To Know- stanza 6

Answer 18

While GD is important, mort gives humans an increased awareness of both desired election and the ephemeral consolations of life

Question 19

To Know- What statement

Answer 19

In ‘To Know’ a presumptively female speaker laments the apparent loss of her lover- her anguish intensified by her inability to witness his death.

Question 20

To Know speaker

Answer 20

Presumptively female sp mourning the loss of her lover/ perhaps in a war

Question 21

To Know- D’s intentions

Answer 21

Explores the dynamic interplay between the consolations of a Puritan afterlife, and the unbridled, transcendent capacities of the human heart.

Question 22

To Know- ‘Conscious consciousness’

Answer 22

Emphasize the Victorian belief that God facilitates epiphanic, divine election, and present the human ability to love as transcending the boundaries of mortality

Question 23

Fly- Form

Answer 23

Lyric poem in 4 stanzas
Common metre/ regularity gives it the effect of hymn meter- good and predictable Christian death

Question 24

Fly- speaker

Answer 24

Person speaking from beyond death
Indeterminate ontology and setting

Question 25

Fly- symbol of the fly

Answer 25

• Decay and death
• Reminder of mundanity, a lack of meaning
• Reminder that the world will continue on after sp dies

Question 26

Fly- What statement

Answer 26

In ‘I Heard a Fly’, Dickinson juxtaposes the mundanity of the quotidian against the profundity of death in order to engage with mortality’s inscrutability.

Question 27

Fly- D’s intentions

Answer 27

Thus, while Dickinson expresses faith in the Christian afterlife, this is mitigated by the opus’ consistent reminders of death’s mundanity, abject Gothicism and tenacious mystery.

Question 27

Frost- form

Answer 27

Lyric poem in 5 stanzas
Common metre- belies sp’s panic + distress/significant interruption in stanza 3

Question 28

Frost- conceit

Answer 28

Death as a frost encroaching towards a flower, which symbolises mortal human life

Question 29

Frost- (Stanzas 1-3)

Answer 29

Sp. grapples w death’s inevitability/ death is life’s cold assassin/ sp. tries to revive flower by turning to nature > attempts fail.
Frost is masculinized + phallicised / each futile attempt to protect the flower becomes more desperate

Question 30

Frost- stanzas 4 and 5

Answer 30

Death finally claims the flower in stanza 4/ sp. abandons hope in nature to adopt rage + bitter impotence

Question 31

Frost- views of Nature and God

Answer 31

Nature= indifferent to human needs + suffering at best, malicious at worst

God= indifferent to human suffering/ allows death to overpower precious life

Question 32

Frost- what statement

Answer 32

Following the conceit of death personified as vicious frost, and ineludible mortality represented as a fragile flower, Dickinson subverts the traditional Transcendalist view of nature as benevolent.

Question 33

Frost- V + Vs

Answer 33

Dickinson lambasts Transcendalist beliefs which position death as a benign and cyclical component of nature; lamenting the irreversible loss of unique human lives.

Question 34

Something Quieter- form

Answer 34

lyric poem in 4 stanzas
Common meter/ some foreshortened tetrameter lines
Strong iambic rhythm

Question 35

Something Quieter- Stanza 1 and 2

Answer 35

Mourner’s ritualistic actions intrude upon profundity of death/ death of a young person

Question 36

Something Quieter- stanza 3

Answer 36

Mourner’s rituals disturb profound, spiritual processes of death’s transition

Question 37

Something Quieter- stanza 4

Answer 37

Sp. ridicules + satirises Mourner’s observation/ aligns themselves with the Vate poet community > This is ironic as poetic observation they make achieve the same thing + are equally insubstantial

Question 38

Something Quieter- what statement

Answer 38

Passage 1 follows a speaker contemplating the implications of perfunctory death rituals within the setting of a ritualized Puritan wake, revealing once more Dickinson’s hesitancy towards insincere Ars Moriendi.

Question 39

Something Quieter- D’s intentions

Answer 39

Dickinson appropriates a traditional wake scene to ultimately destabilize contemporary efforts to sanitize death of its profundity, through highlighting death’s tenacious inscrutability.