there's something Flashcards
‘theres something quieter than sleep’ ‘And will not tell its name’ implicit metaphor, slant rhyme and high modal verb + pronoun.,
reader assumed its death within the ‘inner room’ but implicit metaphor -> Ed’s characteristical view of death as unknowability pronouns = impersonality of the corpse and model ‘will’= death concealing its mystery. Strong slant rhyme ‘room; and ‘name’ reinforces speakers and maybe Eds cognitively and emotionally at odds with death’s inscrutability
‘Some touch it, and some kiss it- / some chafe its idle hand’
the anaphoric spondee’s aggressive interruption of the iambic rhytm= speakers critical of mourner’s actions as sonically intruding upon quietude corpse.
‘chafe’= verb connotations of unwelcome and abrasive nature mourner’s attentions
'’It has a simple gravity/ I do not understand!’
the paradox of ‘simple gravity’ = uncomplicated profundity of death. Full rhyme and simple syntax = tone childlike astonishment, exhorts readers to acknowledge unadorned mystery of death, rather than overlaying it with noisy mourning rituals.
‘I would not weep if I were they’ and “How rude in one to sob’
subjunctive mood= speakers judgment of the mourner’s grating sobs combined with exclamative sentence to reprimand them for debasing and distracting from death’s quiet dignity
‘Might scare the quiet fairy/ Back to her native wood!’
contrasting adjectives= noisy mourners scare ‘fairy’ (soul) back into ‘native wood’ (body) enjambment (no pause at the end of a line) and plosive ‘back’ accentuates sense of soul’s disturbance. therefore, peformative sobs of GBCD mot just distracting also demeaning they may also interrupt the profound spiritual processes.
‘We- prone to periphrasis’ and ‘chat’ and ‘early dead’ and ‘remark’ and ‘birds have fled’
inclusive ‘we’ = speakers ( and perhaps Dickinson’s) identifies themselves with the poets prone to ‘periphrasis’ Verb contrast (vacuity (emptyheadness) compared to insightfulness of ‘remark’) establishes condescending tone in which the poetic speaker= superior pedestrian intellects and imaginations of mourners which fixate on youth of speaker ‘early dead’ rather than more profound truth; ‘bird’ soul has ‘fled’ to heaven or will return to be reborn in cycles of nature
‘prone to periphrasis’
apparent confidence in speakers late-like capacity discern broader truths= undercut by latinate porosity ‘periphrasis;, perhaps the speaker fears poetic rendering of truth= evasive, talking around mystery of death rather than illuminating in it
