Emily Dickinson is highly recognized as being one of the best American poets to ever write. Her legacy lives on through her many published poems and some of her poems that I am sure were lost. When reading Dickinson’s work for the first time, some people can interpret her as a stuffy woman who never left the house. But, when you dig deeper into her poems and letters it is revealed that Dickinson was full of whit, sarcasm, and somewhat weird sexual tendencies (weird tendencies for the time period, not so weird in today’s society.) “A narrow Fellow in the Grass” is one of Dickinson’s many great poems. This poem is full of layers of meaning, with every aspect of the poem drawing in the reader’s attention. The strange wording, the dashes, the question …show more content…
In my opinion the snake represents the same thing that it does in the Bible, sin and corruption. In many literary works a snake is represented as sin and I do not think that is any different in this poem. In the Bible the snake is seen as the one who tempts Eve in the Garden of Eden. The devil manifests himself into the shape of a snake which could be the very thing Dickinson was trying to represent through the snake in this poem. Dickinson’s background through church could definitely be a reason that she would portray the snake in that way. The speaker in this poem is also symbolic. The speaker is an important element because right in the middle of the poem is when we learn that the speaker is a man, not a woman. Up until that point I assumed that the speaker was a woman because the poet was a woman. A woman or girl could just as easily come upon the same situation with the snake as the boy does, so why is it important that the speaker is a man? I think throughout the whole poem Dickinson uses a heavy amount of personification for the same reason she let us know in the middle of the poem that the speaker was a male. I think she wanted us to see that not everything is as it appears to be. Throughout the poem we have the confusion of the snake as being a snake or a “Fellow”, the snake being a snake or a whip, and the speaker being one with nature or the snake being a disturbing event. I think Dickinson uses the speaker as another device to remind the reader that just because something looks a certain way in the beginning does not mean it will be the same in the end. The way Dickinson used the setting is another way she tricked the reader into thinking things were one way when they were actually not. In the beginning of the poem the setting is that of an open field, then the reader learns of a boy who is actually the speaker. This completely changes the setting because now the reader is actually in a conversion about the
The third stanza describes the snake as “cool and gleaming as a braided whip” (9-10). Describing the snake as a braided whip demonstrates the intricate woven pattern of the snake’s scales and the poet’s appreciation for nature and its’ beauty. The snake is not a useless piece of rubber, but a beautiful and vibrant part of nature. “He is as beautiful and quiet as a bead brother” (10-11). The snake is quiet, makes no sound, and snuggles into
Death; termination of vital existence; passing away of the physical state. Dying comes along with a pool of emotions that writers have many times tried to explain. Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman were two pioneer poets from the Romantic Era, that introduced new, freer styles of writing to modern poetry at the time. Both Whitman and Dickinson have similar ideas in their writing, but each has a unique touch of expression in their works. Both poets have portrayed death in their poetry as a relief, a salvation, or escape to a better place- another life. They have formulated death as a positive yet ambiguous state. In Dickinson's "Narrow Fellow in the Grass" and Whitman's "Wound-Dresser", there exists a link
"How dreary to be somebody... How public...," (Dickinson, stanza 1-2). In the eyes of Emily Dickinson, the writer of the cited quote, the majority of the population embodies the distinct characteristics of what she refers to as a somebody in her poem, "I'm nobody! Who are you?". Somebodies are individuals who when grouped together have few varying characteristics between them. Though somebodies seemingly occupy most of the population, they are countered by what Dickinson calls nobodies. Nobodies are characterized for being solitary and introverted. These people do not need validation and are comfortable as they are. Though the traits that nobodies tend to have can be positively connotated, in today's
Emily Dickinson could easily be called one of America’s most influential poets of all time. Born in 1830, in Amherst Massachusetts, Dickinson spent most of her time within the privacy of her family home where she wrote several poems, mostly describing nature. A Narrow Fellow in the Grass, is a poem about a snake, one of nature’s most notorious and feared creatures. Dickinson’s use of metaphors and other figures of speech in this poem were very intriguing all the way throughout, but a few stood out. In lines fourteen and twenty-three she uses very clever wording in a provocative manner to paint a picture for the reader and to evoke emotion.
Emily Dickinson, born in 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts, is regarded as one of America’s best poets. After a poor experience at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, where she was regarded as a “no hope,” her writing career took off in full swing. Although her family was more conservative, regular churchgoers, and socially prominent town figures, Dickinson preferred a socially reserved lifestyle that renounced the traditional values of her day (Baym, 1189-93). The iconoclastic spirit pervasive in Emily Dickinson's poetry reflects her conflict with the traditions of New England society.
Much madness is divinest sense to a discerning eye.” Emily Dickinson’s great poem, “Much Madness is Divinest,” expresses the true rebellious persona that Dickinson was from within and the sense of frustration she had at being a very intelligent woman living during a time where men were the much dominant. The poet uses this poem to reflect the anger she felt (although she was said to be very reserved and quiet spoken) towards the society she lived in. When it came to putting down her feelings on paper, Dickinson did not hold back. In her work Dickinson utilizes the concept of slant rhyme, a wide ranged use of diction, and tone setting to give us her thoughts in concern to the society that she much resented.
When Dickinson states, “Blue to Blue,” in lines 5-6, it represents the sea and something deep because the brain is not the color blue. When she says, “Pound to Pound,” in lines 9-10, it actually mimics what she said in the second stanza, exemplifying a similarity. There are several themes in this poem including
In reading this poem one cannot help but absorb the imagery portrayed by the use of descriptive language. Dickinson does an amazing job of using the senses to feel the sensation as if you were there standing beside the boy on that particular day. Through imagery the poem’s mood, understanding and emotions are created. The dominant sensuous appeal of the poem is definitively fear. Whether Emily Dickinson had a fear of snakes, which she portrayed through the boy, the reader will never know but this poem does generate a sense of uneasiness for the reader. Dickinson uses many physical senses to create the ambiance of the poem and through this the poem becomes meaningful to the reader.
In the first stanza, Dickinson describes the speakers approaching death as gentlemen like as “[Death] kindly stopped for me” which is a unique outlook because usually death is personified as a dark and evil creature (2). When Dickinson alludes to her own tombstone, “We paused before a House that seemed / A Swelling of the Ground” the phrases that are being used are almost comforting (lines 17, 18). In the second line Dickinson describes how Death “kindly stopped” for her. Dickinson’s
Emily Dickinson is the definition of poetry. Within her poems lies numerous underlying meanings and symbols from her lifetime. When she was just a teenager she left school and became a recluse on her family’s homestead. Where she would begin to write some of the greatest poems in history. It is recorded that she wrote hundreds of little poems on random pieces of paper. Some of her greatest poems were about society during her time period, and they can even relate up to today’s society. Some of her best poems about society are “The Soul Selects Her Own Society” and “Tell all the Truth but Tell it Slant”. Both of these poems contain a lot of similarities. However they differ slightly, in saying that, the other really compliments the other within their deeper meanings. Within each of these poems lies metaphors, personification, and inverted syntax.
Dickinson speaks of a snake that is sudden, unintentional. And although she writes of a young boy who enjoys nature and the animals who are apart of it, at the end of the poem she announces that even knowing it was there, she was still unsure and short of breath, leaving her almost numb in her ability to respond towards its presence. This portrays certain anxiety brought upon by the raw power that a single creature can hold. On the other hand, Marianne Moore actively seeks for this same raw power that the snake holds. The ability to empower this masculine power that the dragon
While reading the poem you cannot get a lot from it about Dickinson but you can understand her philosophy about the human body. The beginning stanza “The Brain is wider then the sky, for, put them side to side”. She is saying that the two are the same in many ways. The sky is endless and always growing, as is a brain. We know that Emily Dickinson was very educational. She went to Amherst Academy schools and was a very out standing student. At the time when she wrote this poem there was a lot of thing happening such as the civil war and slavery and the Underground
This symbolism is important in creating the theme in the poem because it helps to show the weight of her madness- both in a literal and in a figurative sense. Literally, lead is heavy and loud: this helps to show the severity of her feelings. But figuratively, there are obviously not actual lead boots in Dickinson’s mind. This helps to relate what Dickinson is going through, which in uncommon, to something that anyone would be able to relate to and then get a sense of what all is going on in her mind. Dickinson’s use of symbolism allows for the theme of the poem to be more easily understood by the readers.
“Dickinson 's language was too spare and unsentimental, her rhymes and punctuation too unusual, and her perceptions too startling for conventional nineteenth-century taste. The literary men to whom she turned for advice were simply unable to understand her work; in addition, they found it difficult to take any "female poet" seriously”.
The controversy surrounding Emily Dickinson is her odd lifestyle and her tendencies to be somewhat of a recluse. She is sometimes considered abnormal because she does things differently from most others. She spends much of her life dressed in white and withdrawn from much of society. Of course, her peers take this negatively, but what they do not understand is that her being so private is more of a meditation to her, instead of a hiding. She just wants to escape the pressures she feels are normally required of women. She does not want to be a servant to sick and elderly. She feels she has more potential for her mind to grow, and those obligations would just be hindrances to her writing (McQuade 1255). Her childhood and her staying out of society as an adult, along with many other aspects known and not known, influence her poems and the style in which she goes about writing the works. Her techniques of writing are completely different from any other writer, whether prose or poetry. Dickinson composes her phrases by marking them off with a dash, placing a space before and after. This small maneuver places more emphasis on her “impress of the mind in its analysis of experience” (McQuade 1256). Her slant thymes and unique form of expression produces more of an oddness to the audience.