Close Reading on Tintern Abbey
It was not Death, for I stood up,
And all the Dead lie down -
It was not Night, for all the Bells
Put out their Tongues, for Noon.
…
And yet it tasted like them all,
The Figures I have seen
Set orderly, for Burial,
Reminded me, of mine -
~Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson presents to readers a speaker who is rummaging her psychological frame while trying to understand her anguish. In the first stanza, Dickinson eliminates certain possibilities of what “it” could be (“it” being her mental condition), pointing out that it was certainly not death that stood her up because “the Dead, lie down”. She does this by using imagery related to death, night and corpses. The speaker is definitely confused about what she feels because she goes on to describe reasons why what she is feeling is not, rather than what it is, using metaphors. However, she does give good evidence as to why those could not be the cause of her current condition. For example, “It was not Night, for all the Bells/Put out their Tongues, for Noon”, here she gives a clear image of the time of day being the afternoon while the clock strikes 12 and the bells ring, therefore it was not the night time that had her feeling this way.
Moving on to stanza three, being that the metaphors could not describe how she is feeling, she now pulls those eliminated possibilities back and tells us “it tastes like them all,”. All of the aspects she lists conclude that this mental state she is experiencing affects every aspect, but is still indistinguishable. She cannot quite recognize the state of mind she finds herself in at this moment. In this line she uses synesthesia, where she provides an image of the tasting of death, coldness, and even darkness. Her mind then wanders to a Funeral, “Set orderly, for Burial”, the indication of someone being dead and buried leads her to think of her current situation in which she says “Reminded me, of mine -”. This depicts the emotion she is feeling,
And all the Dead lie down -
It was not Night, for all the Bells
Put out their Tongues, for Noon.
…
And yet it tasted like them all,
The Figures I have seen
Set orderly, for Burial,
Reminded me, of mine -
~Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson presents to readers a speaker who is rummaging her psychological frame while trying to understand her anguish. In the first stanza, Dickinson eliminates certain possibilities of what “it” could be (“it” being her mental condition), pointing out that it was certainly not death that stood her up because “the Dead, lie down”. She does this by using imagery related to death, night and corpses. The speaker is definitely confused about what she feels because she goes on to describe reasons why what she is feeling is not, rather than what it is, using metaphors. However, she does give good evidence as to why those could not be the cause of her current condition. For example, “It was not Night, for all the Bells/Put out their Tongues, for Noon”, here she gives a clear image of the time of day being the afternoon while the clock strikes 12 and the bells ring, therefore it was not the night time that had her feeling this way.
Moving on to stanza three, being that the metaphors could not describe how she is feeling, she now pulls those eliminated possibilities back and tells us “it tastes like them all,”. All of the aspects she lists conclude that this mental state she is experiencing affects every aspect, but is still indistinguishable. She cannot quite recognize the state of mind she finds herself in at this moment. In this line she uses synesthesia, where she provides an image of the tasting of death, coldness, and even darkness. Her mind then wanders to a Funeral, “Set orderly, for Burial”, the indication of someone being dead and buried leads her to think of her current situation in which she says “Reminded me, of mine -”. This depicts the emotion she is feeling,