Dickinson To Know Flashcards
No quote (poetic form)Heroic quatrains + initiation of anaphoric enquiry
‘to know if any human eyes were near’ + ‘wavering gaze’ + ‘settled broad on paradise’Synecdoche (“eyes”)Contrast b/w “wavering” + “settled”‘
patient –part content –‘Adjectives (or just diction)
‘did the sunshine face his way’Simple, uncomplicated syntax (word order) + diction (language)
→establishes expect. traditional elegy (painful death →blissful resurrec.) / tone mournful questioning = sp. mourning intimate friend or lover, most likely CW soldier, wishing ‘to know’ if died death of X’ndignity→synecdoche = sp’swish for attendants (PGD)→adj ‘wavering’ evokes extreme vuln. dying man’s death throes, contrast w. verb ‘settled’ on ‘paradise’ (soul soon to be granted redemption + restfulness in Heaven)→adjs = Sp. wish know soldier = accept death calmly (→election, PGD)→Simple syntax + diction = sp’swish soldier received simple comforts ∴S1&2 predictable metrereflects sent’lityconvent. elegy (afterlife = ultimate consolation) + reveals sp(+ possibly D’son) keenly engaged w. beliefs of PGD
‘His furthest mind –Of home –or God –‘ + ‘What the distant say’Breakdown of heroic quatrains / additional line Parallelism + caesura and dash
‘Just his sigh –accented –had been legible -to me -’synaesthesia
→metrical shift = D’son prob’zing assump heaven only source consolation / multiple foreshortened lines may replicate imperfect rhythms mortality + genuineness sp’s grief →loss of ‘home’ elevated to same status as contemplation of Heaven→soldier contemplates legacy in the mortal world, not just resurrect.→Imply privileged r’shipbtw sp+ soldier / only sphas the unique sensory capacity to discern soldier’s final wish
‘afraid –or tranquil’Adjectives
‘How conscious consciousness could grow’Near identical repetition
‘Tillove that was –and love too best to be -’Past tense + hyperbole
→Sp. still interested PGD (wishes soul to be ‘tranquil’) →2X readings: dying man has revelation of God b4 death AND/OR awareness of death intensifies our humanity (our ultimate vulnerability makes life’s ephemeral r’shipsprecious)→stresses twin loves: one of the mortal world that must be left behind (past tense) –the other the perfection of God’s redemption (hyperbole)
