Emily Dickinson

Question 1

Dickinson’s Poetry

Answer 1

One of the great poets of inwardness ever to write in the English Language

Question 2

Dickinson’s Poetry Cont

Answer 2

While social and historical ideas and values contributed to shaping her character, her ultimate context is herself, the milieu of her mind

Question 3

Dickinson’s Style

Answer 3

Compact, forceful language, characterized by long disruptive dashes, heavy iambic meters and angular, imprecise rhymes

Question 4

Her Poetic Form

Answer 4

Customary 4 line stanzas, ABCB rhyme schemes, and alterations in iambic pentameter between tetrameter and trimeter is derived from Psalms and Protestant hymns

Question 5

One of Dickinson’s greatest poetic techniques…

Answer 5

write about the particulars of her own emotions in a kind of homiletic or adage-like tone that describes the reader’s mind as well as the poet’s.

Question 6

Dickinson is not…

Answer 6

a “philosophical poet”; she makes not effort to organize her thoughts and feelings into a coherent, unified worldview.

Question 7

Major Themes

Answer 7

Individual’s Struggle with God; The Assertion of the Self; The Power of Words and Poetry; Nature as a Haunted House;

Question 8

Motifs

Answer 8

The Speaker’s Unique Poetic Voice; The Connection between Self and Sight;

Question 9

Symbols

Answer 9

Feet, Stones, Birds