Preview

What Is The Rhyme Scheme Of There's A Certain Slant Of Light

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1189 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
What Is The Rhyme Scheme Of There's A Certain Slant Of Light
Even though Dickinson only wrote a few poems in her lifetime, she is still considered one of America’s finest poets. Dickinson is well-known for being involved with the Romanticism ideal. A literacy movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century. It eventually made itself known to America and started to appear more in America literature in the 1800s. The movement’s emphasis consists of nature, emotion and particularly the individual. Emily Dickinson was not only famous for her romantic input but also for being mysterious when it came to her work. Her personal life and its mysteries shaped her poetry. In Emily Dickinson’s “There’s a Certain Slant of Light”, the speaker is rather confusing, hiding from the sunlight within …show more content…
In the first stanza, Dickinson chooses the words “light” and “heft” to display the connection between the light and the speaker. The word “light” is the depression that the speaker is feeling but the word “heft” is telling the impact it is doing to him mentally and physically. The light is getting heavier and building on top of the speaker and while this happens the speaker becomes more weak and desperate, therefore being confined into the dark room and not being able to leave. In the third stanza, Dickinson uses “despair” and “air” to tell the reader that everywhere the speaker goes despair will follow. As the speaker continues to live in the dark and cold, they will begin to lose hope in themselves. “The author notes the use of the word "air" in the third stanza has been interpreted in an ironic manner to mean…an element of nature [and something unpleasant]” (Dahl) In the fourth stanza, Dickinson decides to use “breath” and “death” to display that while the light goes away during the night, despair in the air is still present. The speaker tries to hold their breath to prevent anymore despair from entering their body but as the light goes away, the speaker gets a glimpse of death. The mood of the poem begins to change in the fourth stanza, the speaker attempts to anticipate death by holding their breath. However by the end the reader is not given a proper answer to the light or the speaker’s …show more content…
Therefore the speaker feels rather safe and secure in the dark. Dickinson perhaps uses these terms “day” and “night” to describe the life and death of the speaker. Dickinson inputs religious references such as the cathedral music and words such as heaven to have the speaker involved with religion in some way. Towards the end of the poem, Dickinson leaves the readers hanging for a conclusion. The readers are forced to improvise and create their own ending. Dickinson purposely left out details of the poem to make it more confusing for the reader. This gives a connection between the reader and the poet, having a mysterious ending will keep the reader thinking until the very end. Emily Dickinson was one of the greatest Romanticism poets due to her mysterious writing style. Her writing is said to be unique, not only by the words she writes down but how she writes them. Her style of writing cannot be compared to any other and is in a category of its

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In the beginning of the stanza death arrives to pick up the speaker. She says “Because I could not stop for Death- He kindly waited for me,” (1-2) this shows that Dickinson represents death as a generous person. He’s also described as being patient, when in reality death can’t stop to wait for someone. We then see that death and the speaker aren’t the only ones going along this ride but so is “immortality” (4). “We slowly drove- he knew no haste” (5). By saying this she shows us that he has patience and that death isn’t in a hurry to get to their…

    • 796 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    the same concept, the two poems do not use eyesight for the same purpose. Dickinson uses the…

    • 581 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the second stanza, Dickinson writes, "And meet the Road--erect--". This invokes in the readers' mind and image of a stout yet stalwart victim, alone at the end of a long, dark,…

    • 773 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The great Emily Dickinson is known for her inquisitive and powerful poems, but what made her poems so notable? Emily lived a simple life, mostly secluded, so why would some simple poems change how people thought about such difficult subjects? The answers are in her style of writing. Her seclusion allowed her to “meditate on life and death” and write about such controversial themes and topics that are still being discussed today (Allen 546). Her ability to highlight important words or phrases or cause a short pause or accentuate a certain phrase cause people reading her work to entirely stop and think about what they had just read. Emily Dickinson’s style, involving odd punctuation, unusual capitalization, and meticulous figurative language,…

    • 1463 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the fifth stanza, the author delves deeper into her depressive state of mind. The narrator perceives her despair in such intensity that “everything that ticked- [had] stopped”. She continues to further ferment her isolation, a sign of a psychological depression. The sixth stanza personifies the narrator’s hopelessness towards her situation. She sees no “chance, or spar” to escape her predicament. The author paradoxically states that she cannot even feel despair, for hope does not exist in her mind. The reader is led to conclude the her mental state is worse than despair, for there is no cure for her illness. Throughout her poem, Dickinson employs several literary devices, such as alliteration, contrast, slant rhymes, and parallel structure, in order to achieve her purpose. There are several examples of alliteration in the text, such as in the lines ”It was not Frost for on my Flesh” and…

    • 518 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Essay on Night

    • 548 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In Dickinson's poem, she capitalizes some words, and by this, she is able to emphasize the most important words of the poem: words such as “Dark”, “Evenings”, and “Midnight”, show ignorance that seems awkward in the poem but also in real life. These words contribute to Dickinson's hesitant tone, which is evident as she calls her readers to pursue knowledge. In the first stanza, the poet refers to herself as “we” rather than “I”, showing that the situation being described is applicable universally, not specific to one indivual. In Frost's poem, the “acquainted” used in the title sums up the relationship between the poem's subject and the night. The word shows that the two acknowledge each other, but also implies that there may be an awkward relationship between the two. The night seems to be really attached to the speaker, who cannot seem to get alone time. Frost uses a negative tone, seen in line 3 where the speaker “outwalks the furthest city lamp.” Here, he contrasts the streetlamp with the desolate darkness, enhancing the difference between the two and creating a feeling of hopelessness.…

    • 548 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Dickinson’s poem “Hope” was written in both simple syntax and diction, but backed up with a strong meaning. Though the word order and punctuation are somewhat strange, the actual words are easy to understand on their own. However, what makes them interesting is how they relate to one another and how they play an important factor to the overall theme of hope. Throughout the poem the words chosen are those we use everyday and made up of one or two syllables. The plain diction that is used throughout most of the poem shows the naturalness of hope. Yet Dickinson breaks this flow with the word ‘extremity’ to show the burdens that hope can help one overcome. While hope is a difficult idea to grasp, Dickinson uses a simple writing style to explain hope in a philosophical view through the exploration of hope through all types of landscapes, such as the chillest land and strangest sea.…

    • 1320 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Darkness is a recurring image in literature that evokes a universal unknown, yet is often entrenched in many meanings. A master poet, Emily Dickinson employs darkness as a metaphor many times throughout her poetry. In “We grow accustomed to the dark” (#428) she talks of the “newness” that awaits when we “fit our Vision to the Dark.” As enigmatic and shrouded in mystery as the dark she explores, Dickinson's poetry seems our only door to understanding the recluse. As she wrote to her friend T.W. Higginson on April 15, 1862, “the Mind is so near itself – it cannot see, distinctly”(Letters 253). In this musing, she acquiesces to a notion that man remains locked in an internal struggle with himself. This inner conflict is brought to light through a metaphorical darkness that pervades many of her poems. Evidenced by the sheer breadth of her poetry she penned throughout her life, it is clear Dickinson indulged and withdrew often into the inner realm of her own mind. The darkness is an interesting metaphor because it represents a dichotomy between an internal and external. Poem 428 illustrates both as the darkness acts as a barrier against understanding, while at the same time a limitless passage to potential knowledge.…

    • 2202 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Emily Dickinson Metaphors

    • 363 Words
    • 2 Pages

    After reading the whole poem, the eloquent metaphors used by Emily Dickinson can be better brought to light in order to help explain her point of view. Throughout this poem, she uses dark as a metaphor which explains why it is always capitalized. Once the importance is recognized, a reader can put all of the pieces together behind the true meaning of this piece of work. For example when she says, “A Moment – We Uncertain step For newness of the night,” she first is introducing the thought into the reader's mind about emotional changes…

    • 363 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Emily Dickinson Pros/Cons

    • 1484 Words
    • 6 Pages

    In poetry, Dickinson is often fascinated by nature, death, pain, love and God. In her poems Dickinson often speaks elliptically. That said, when reading Dickinson's poems, we must dot the I's and cross the T's that we think are not L's. We must make our own interpretation because Emily would not have wanted us to interpret them at all. This is where the window is open to much criticism that maybe a pro or con to how others view Dickinson and her work. This is where we unknowingly hyperbolae words or phrases that should be litotilate.…

    • 1484 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Then Dickinson proceeds to say that sometimes it takes a little more time to habituate your vision, and you might run into a tree but you will eventually make it to the road. We all know that Dickinson always had a way of using her words, and that this poem is not just about physical darkness. The quote, “Either the Darkness alters – Or something in the sight Adjusts itself to Midnight –And Life steps almost straight.”, explains of course that when in the dark at first you can’t see but when you get use to it…, but we know that metaphorically this darkness could be a problem, a nightmare, a bad day, or even someone you dislike. She uses both throughout the story, and this shows that darkness is more than something that’s…

    • 647 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Emily Dickinson Isolation

    • 1339 Words
    • 6 Pages

    This signifies how Emily enjoys seclusion and has chosen a prison to be her refuge. In the following stanza, Emily shows appreciation of her confinement through, “the appointed Beam” which symbolises something that provides the persona with support and structure. She uses symbolism of food in the second stanza when she writes “It deals us- stated as our food” to represent how the persona not only hungers, but depends on the self-imposed isolation. Dickinson uses juxtaposition to explain the seclusion of a prison by saying “so miserable a sound-at first- nor ever now-so sweet’, describing a prison as both miserable and sweet. This implies that although isolation may seem miserable at first, the privacy and exclusion will eventually grow on you and you begin to appreciate it. The reoccurring metaphor of a prison being the persona’s room is explored when she says ‘A geometric joy’, which suggests that the square shape of a room and its limited circuit brings contentment and comfort to the persona. In the fourth and fifth stanza, the idea that the prison and the key are an illusion is acknowledged when Emily uses the word ‘Phantasm’ proving to the audience that in actuality Dickinson has created this way of life and is satisfied with the privacy it provides. In the final stanza, Dickinson implys that freedom can only be redeemed after life when she…

    • 1339 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the first stanza Dickinson writes, “Because I could not stop for Death- / He kindly stopped for me-” (Dickinson 1-2). Right away it appears as if the death was unexpected and there were no signs of it coming to the person. These theme continues through Dickinson’s poem as she takes this person through the experience of death in a carriage ride with Death itself. Through the carriage ride there is no sense of danger as Dickinson writes, “I had put away / My labor and my leisure to, / For His Civility-” (Dickinson 6-8). As they ride together there is a familiarity between them as if they are friends enjoying the presence of each…

    • 653 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Emily Dickinson?s Tell the Truth but tell it slant there are numerous examples of romanticism such as mystery, emotion, irrationality and surprise. Some of them are obvious, while others require a bit more thought. I will point out both.…

    • 378 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Emily Dickinson valued individuality, nature, and emphasized emotion. These are all characteristics of Romantic writing. A great example of individuality within her writing would be her writing style. She uses atypical punctuation and capitalization, eliminates words, ignores the rules of grammar, turns verbs into nouns, and she rarely uses perfect rhyme. Dickinson valued nature & looks to it for wisdom and beauty. In her poem, “This Is My Letter to the World”, she looks to nature for wisdom rather than people. “The simple news that Nature told, With tender majesty. Her message is committed To hands I cannot see; For love of her, sweet countrymen, Judge tenderly of me!” Dickinson utilizes personification in this poem due to her referring to…

    • 219 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays