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Isolationism In Emily Dickinson's Poetry

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Ever wonder what life would be like if a person hid away from society and isolated itself from the whole community? That is exactly what the well-known poet, Emily Dickinson, did for twenty years, and during that time period, she was writing poems that would later have english scholars thinking about the different interpretations of them for years. Emily Dickinson is from a puritan family who wanted her to follow their beliefs, but she decided to break away from her family and society by focusing on her writing. Dickinson isolating herself from society helped her come up with the theme of isolationism in her poetry, and these years away from her community helped inspire her in creating the plot of her poems. In Dickinson’s “Hope is the thing …show more content…

First of all, all of Dickinson’s poems were not given a name, so everyone referred to the first verse in her poems to be the title. This poem begins with a metaphor of transforming hope into a bird that is present in the human soul. Most of Dickinson’s poems include a metaphor, which is usually the basis of the poem. Paula Bennett points out that “[w]hile Dickinson’s nature poetry is directed toward representations of the material world, it is also true that she employed metaphors drawn from nature to illustrate the inner life” (116). Bennett talks about how Dickinson uses metaphors a lot, and this relates to this poem because Dickinson’s whole poem is about the metaphor of hope being a bird and how it is present in the human soul. Dickinson begins the poem with “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers-” (Vendler 118). The beginning line is interpreted as explaining to the reader how hope is a bird, and she displays that hope is an actual thing by capitalizing it and putting it in quotation marks. By capitalizing it, it displays its materialistic quality, and this comes back to her fixation on seclusion by hope being her only companion. Since she is alone for so long, her only companion is hope since she is holding onto it through her rough times, which is the plotline of the

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Hope Is a Feathered Thing. " She uses rhyme to give her poems an organized and purposeful flow. Dickinson uses a lot of figurative language when comparing hope to a feathered bird. This poem explores the fluid nature of hope and how it can help us cope with difficult circumstances.

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Dickinson wrote the poem “XXXII”, which portrays hope as a soft fragile bird who never loses hope even when it has been abashed. Emily Dickinson was an American poet who was born in Amherst, Massachusetts. Emily was not an outgoing or social type of person. The loss and death of her loved ones impacted Dickinson in a huge manor. There was nothing more to help than to write poems expressing thoughts and feelings.

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This is why she shows such a fascination towards it. “There is no frigate like a book”, this shows that she found literature as a great escape from life (Dickinson 1). Dickinson’s isolation to the world is further exemplified in, “I’m Nobody! Who are you?” I believe that this poem shows that she believes that she is nobody, and finds no reason to become a “somebody” because it is useless to her (Dickinson).

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Hope is a tone used in the lines of the poem. The writer does this because he wants to represent how there were hard parts to the Harlem Renaissance but at the same time there was still hope for change. They believed that all of their problems could be resolved. This connects directly to the Harlem Renaissance because it represents how this movement had its ups and downs but how everyone would continue to try until they met the joyful ending they were looking for. If there were any obstacles in their way they would overcome them.

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Many poets used metaphor and simile in poems to bring attention to serious issues in society. Ports used metaphor to pinpoint the issue through direct comparison. For instance, in the poem Hope is a bird by Emily Dickinson, Dickinson introduced her metaphor in the first two lines "Hope is the thing with feathers -that preaches in the soul". She then develops it throughout the poem by telling what the bird does (sing), how it reacts to hardship. Rita Dove is an African American contemporary woman.

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In the first stanza of this poem Dickinson writes "Hope is the thing with feathers
 That perches in the soul,

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“Hope is the thing with feathers”, she states “Hope is the thing with feathers // That perches in the soul, // And sings the tune without the words”. This imagery pastes the vivid picture of a bird being the inner light and being of a silhouetted figure; the words ‘perches in the soul” and “sings the tune without words” provide the foundation for this image. Additionally, Dickinson

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When writers add in seemingly random details such as capitalizations and dashes, one should pay attention. Emily Dickenson’s “There’s a certain Slant of light” is simply about light passing over the landscape, but no poem is only about what it seems. Dickenson uses caesura, juxtaposition, personification, and other literary devices to convey a dark, negative tone about the light throughout the poem.

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In the second stanza, Dickinson uses metaphors to compare her new realization and power over herself by comparing her new situation to being “Called to my Full -- The Crescent dropped -- / Existence’s whole Arc, filled up,” (11, 12) These lines show her being called to her potential and gaining that power which can also be seen with her mentioning Crescent which is metoymy to the crown she later mentions. She also writes the line, “Unto supremest name --”

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The use of metaphor is evident in the poem in the first stanza the metaphor “Futile - the winds -” is important because it is showing that in the middle there is no windy path that can break from their love. And the wind is incapable to produce. This goes back to my thesis because Dickinson is expressing her emotion and love that nothing can come in between the love she has for her significant other and not even the winds can stop the longing of their love. The second stanza “To a Heart in port -”, gives the message that her heart is being unused right now, but is in the boat coming.

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The first stanza of this particular Dickinson poem helps to set the on going theme for the rest of the poem. The theme of course for this particular poem is about the sea and early morning walk that Dickinson had with her dog. The opening stanza of the poem reads, “I started Early- Took my Dog -/And visited the Sea -/The Mermaids in the Basement / Came out to look at me” (I. 1-4). From this passage the audience can presume that Dickinson has taken her pet dog for a walk on the beach in the early morning hours, and that on the walk she may have encountered beautiful sea creatures that looked up at her.

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On the one hand, if one goes deeply into Dickinson’s poem “This is my letter to the world”, where one can say that this poem can be appreciated that the speaker is complaining about the way that life has gone on. At first sight it is possible to observe that the language used by Dickinson was very simple because it was easy to understand. However, it was more complex than it seems to be, because a different meaning could have been given to the poem if it is analyzed in a deeper way. Moreover the poetic devices that she uses make the poem very attractive for the reader and also easy to follow because of the musicality that her rhymes produced in the way it is read, as in the ones used in the verse 2: “That never wrote to Me”, compared to verse 4: “With tender Majesty”, where the endings have the same sound. (Dickinson, poem #441: This is my letter to the

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In her poem, Dickinson shows the reader what it means to dwell in possibility, its attributes, how to get there, and who may enter. The character in the poem is referring to Dickinson as the writer, and the theme is centered around her dwelling in possibility. The word dwell has two meanings,

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Although the idea of suffering may seem more present in Sympathy, you can also see the suffering that comes with hope in Dickinson’s poem. A prime example of suffering in “Hope is the thing with feathers” can be seen in the beginning of the last stanza where Dickinson writes, “I’ve heard it in the chilliest land, and on the strangest sea”. Dickinson is referring to times where her suffering made her feel as if she was in a horrible place. The suffering could have been she was having a tough time but the hope was constant. At the end of the second stanza Dunbar explains his suffering saying, “And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars

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