essential info for Dickinson Poems

Question 1

Fly

Answer 1

• Onomatopoeic “buzz” w trochaic stress; Fly’s intrusion on solemnity of death bed scene, abrupt opening line/ fly symbolically assoc w death + decay + corporeal death opposed to ethereal
• “Btw heaves of storm” = sp’s death = moment of quiet inbtw twin “storms” of life + life
• “Eye” synecdoche = genuine grief BUT spectatorship - mourners gathered to “witness” the “king” in hope of assurance of ascension - bathetically substituted for fly
• “last onset” = oxymoronic b/c sp has faith in afterlife
• cacophonous “interposed” = fly returns to disrupt perfect DB ritual
• “blue - uncertain - stumbling buzz” synesthesia as sp’s senses begin to fail = dashes rep. erratic movement of fly
• “i could not see to see” = diacope for i could not see to know -> death’s unknowability, despite sp. and mourner’s adherence to Ars M

Question 2

Frost

Answer 2

• conceit of Death = flower = mortal life
• imperative “secure ure flower” = imperious tone
• simile “like sailors fighting with a leak” = foreshadows futility of sp efforts to evade death
  “to Sea - to mountain - to the Sun” anaphora and dashes = sp failed attempts to save flower + destablising romantic belief in nature’s regenerative power
• S3: lack of dashes, severed tetrameter, verbs “wedged” + “pried” = sp sisyphean effort to save flower/simile to contrasts the ease w which the malevolent “narrow snake” in nature can overcome sp effort
• plosive allit. “beauty bent” = flower succumbs
• parrallelism “we hated death and hated life” = sp’s realisation that life + death are inextricably linked x harmoniously, cruelly callous act of god

Question 3

to know

Answer 3

• eschewing characteristically common meter w Elegiac verse w Heroic quatrains = solemnize dead soldier
• anaphora = interrog. mode = sp tries to console themself w signs that “he” died a “good death” (anxiety on home front around Ars M)
• “human Eyes” synecdoche = (like in Fly) expresses sp’s wish to know us he was attended at moment of passing (Ars M)
• “wavering gaze” = man’s faltering consciousness = vulnerability/contracted w stillness “settled broad on paradise” -> sp imagines dying man fixing attention upon Heaven (sign of imminent election according to Protestant custom)
• S 3 abandons heroic quatrains as sp contemplate consolations of human r’ships + foreshortening conveys sp’s grief
• parallelism “of home - or God” equates earthly + heavenly thought
• “His sigh - Accented - had been legible - to Me -“ synesthesia + dashes highlights unique value of human R’ships
• “Was he afraid - or -“ sp still concerned w GD but acknowledgement of Mortal life’s value may account for the additional line in S6
• “conscious consciousness” = near identical repetition to stress both contemp. belief that moment of death gives epiphanic glimpse of the afterlife, but also, make hyperconscious of mortal life’s ephemeral beauty
• “love that was - and love too best to be “ medial caesura marks jux. btw mortal love and divine love

Question 4

Opp house

Answer 4

• Characteristically abrupt opening line converys details of neighbour’s beath w impass. econ. = CoD
• Connot. “rustle” + 3 quick monosyllables “in and out” = mourner’s as buisnesslike + perfunctory
• Perfunctory connot. of “lings” + pns “it” + “that” imply abject disgust at deathbed/ c + d “ - on that - “ suggest. repulsed fixation
• “stiffly” connotes minister’s officious manner + rigor mortis / “owned all the mourners - now -“ C + D = miniter’s officious authority is temp b/c he gone die one day
• “man of appalling trade” = euphemism for undertaker shows societal attempts to elude death’s abjectness (+ gothic connotations of appalling)
• line break signify coffin leaving house + sp’s limited insight
• “Dark parade” oxymoron = ED’s VVS that no amount of routine or ritual can obfuscate death’s pervasive Gothicism.

Question 5

Publication

Answer 5

• explicit metaphore to def. Pub = contrast w hope
• internal rhyme + cacophonous consonance stressed troch’ of “pub/” + “aucti” = excoriating tone (+conn. of “foul” + “auction”)
• enjamb. btw S1 + S2 ^ qualifier “possibly”
• enjamb btw L5+7 = sp conviction
• imagery of whiteness in S2 = purity of being unpub.
• poem’s chief juxtaposition btw comm + spiritual dicton, eg “invest” + “snow”
• simple diction -> aphoristic tone of “thought belong to Him who gave it”
• debasing connotations of “corporeal” + “sell” vs imperial diction of “royal air”
• serpentine sibilance of S4 to show publication + malevolently tempting + allusion to Judas
• Uncharacteristic/unequivocal commant to resolve definition: “reduce no human spirit to disgrace of price”

Question 6

Blank

Answer 6

• repetition + capitalization of “Blank” accentuates sp’s endless, inescapable emptiness/ by severing terameter after “blank” = ED implying space end of line to further emphasize emptiness
  -“threadless way” introduces conceit of despair as being lost in maze -> allusion to Theseus subverted to show despair as meaningless, directionless ect
• Metaphor: effortful + depersonalizing connotations of “pushed” + mundanity of “mechanic” as if sp simply going through the motions
• Fatalism of “To stop - or perish - or advance” emphasized by dashes
• All rhymes skewing acoustic expectation + creating constant state of deferral, of ends nearly arrives as but never realised
• sonic parallelism of severed tertrameer lines continue conceit -> sp thinks maze ended but lack of dash = x end
• harsh consonance of “d” (en’d’, gaine’d’, beyon’d’, disclose’d’ ect) gives sense of enclosure/entrapment
• paradox of “twas lighter - to be blind” = 2 readings; easier to give up/turn away from emotions OR romantic idea intuition will provide enlightenment.

Question 7

Blazing

Answer 7

• conceit of sunlight as juggler kof many guises
• compressed quatrains to form octet + no dashes -> invigorating rush of sun’s rise + fall
• progressive verbs (+ trochees) -> invigorating + dynamic
• colour symbolism -> regality of sunset + sunrise
• connot. of “quenching” death of light evoking satisfaction X melancholy (contrast Slant + Frost)
• Simile “leaping like leopard” guises evokes sun’s feline gracefulness as it rises from the east
• just as the sun has risen, it’s guise abruptly changes to an old woman “laying her spotted face to die” –> death in nature equated w human mortality but bittersweet
• conceit of juggler revealed in final line as darkness arrives –> bittersweet tone - sun has put on an impressive albeit ephemeral

Question 8

Slant

Answer 8

• connotations of “slant” paradox b/c confusion x illuminating + “winter afternoons” suggest light + nature synonymous w death = destabilising romantic view
• ponderous connotations of “oppresses” + “heft” + alliterative oxymoron “Heavenly hurt” = religious (supposed to provide comfort) accentuates sp’s sense of dislocation
• uncharacteristic use of full rhyme belies sp’s disconsolating tone
• Sharp assonance of “internal difference” + ungrammatical comma “where the meanings, are” shows sp’s internal suffering
• “no scar” + “seal of despair” evokes sp’s entrapement
• imperial diction suggests nature = conduit of callous god
• Personification of landscape + simile return to idea of death within nature evoking sp’s despair over own mortality

Question 9

Two Butterlies

Answer 9

• conceit: 2 b’flies rep N’s sublime beauty + capacity to inspire imagination
• personifying verbs “waltzed”, “stepped” + “rested” evoke power of sp’s poetic imagination
• luminous diction “noin, firmament, beam” emphasise b’flies beauty + also gives them radiant ethereal quality foreshadowing flight to alternative heavenly realm
• “beam” = sunbeam or boundary btw mortal world + other realm
• “and then - “ tone of sublime astonishment -> medial caesura replicates awe-filled gasp of speaker
• betaphor of b’flies as seafarers - “sea” + “port” + “never mentioned” -> poetic imagination capable ot peecieving unknown realms
• S3 reverses logic of previous stanza - now poet only one who X see b’flies -> fitful dashes = failure/fragmentation of poetic imagination to sustain