There’s no Frigate like a Book by Emily Dickenson

A time of influential literary, social, political, and economic movements along with a multitude of famous global events, the 19th century was a period of rapid growth and reform. During this time, the fallout from the Civil War had a profound effect not only on the citizens of America but its writers as well, who had their beliefs vigorously challenged. In particular, Emily Dickinson, one of the most distinguished poets of the 19th century, had close relations with Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who fought in the war and frequently advised Dickinson (Emily Dickinson Museum). Commonly known for her extensive use of slant rhyme, lack of titles, and her unusual use of capitalization and punctuation, Dickinson’s brief yet complex poetry has had a significant effect on American literature.

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson, or called Emily Dickinson for short (1830 – 1886) and Mary Oliver (1935), are the two poets who contributed great works of art to American society during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. In spite of several characteristics that can be found in both Emily Dickinson and Mary Oliver poems, there are undeniably things that distinguish them from one another, although outside both are very famous poets of the poems that they wrote at that time, but actually inside, every poem that they bring the reader has a different meaning and quite deep in reader hearts. For example, as we read the poem “Alligator Poem” by Mary

In this poem, Edgar brings books to life using personification. Line 1 says, "They have their stratagems too, though they can't move." Edgar brings the main idea in the first line which signifies the power books posses and how they don't

“Seahorses” is a non-rhyming poem with seven ten-line stanzas, which all prominently exhibit the poem’s four main literary devices: imagery, diction, symbolism and rhythm. Leithauser’s eloquent diction and well-placed line and stanza breaks help to construct a relaxing, peaceful rhythm that creates the elegant feeling of a seahorse slowly swimming through the azure waters of the ocean. To add a layer of vivid images to this already enthralling literary canvas, Leithauser uses descriptive vocabulary, such as sparsity, menagerie and nonsynchronous, to describe the situation and help the poem appeal to each of the reader’s five senses. The most subtle, yet possibly most impactful literary device displayed in the poem is symbolism. Leithauser utilizes symbolism throughout the poem to give the poem greater depth and extract deeper meaning from a topic usually thought of as simple and childish. Appearing predominantly in the final two stanzas, but present throughout the poem, Brad Leithauser uses the idea of the seahorse to represent imagination, and the “release” that it can present from our every-day troubles. This message is embodied by the poem’s final sentence which states, “If there’s to be any egress for you and me from the straitening domain of the plausible, what

Throughout the overwhelmingly large novel Moby Dick, an intense usage of rhetoric can be found; however, only in a few instances do certain characters seem to be built on such language that their speeches compel people to act upon their word. If any character in particular stands out in this aspect, Ahab would prevail. Ahab’s artful use of rhetoric throughout Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, particularly when speaking to a crowd, causes him to attain what he desires as well as create poetic instances that need particular analyzing to comprehend. In this particular passage found in “Chapter 36. The Quarter-Deck,” Captain Ahab has just finished motivating his crew to join his hunt for Moby Dick and quelling those who spoke out against him. Though a generally short two paragraphs, Ahab packs each and every word with meaning, whether it be further the dark tone, creating intricate symbolism, or alluding to otherwise unimportant subjects; however, such instances only make Ahab a more compelling character.

Most authors write their poems based off their experiences with family and love or happiness, whereas Dickenson preferred to be alone for her writing. She is also well-known for writing poems questioning the nature of life and death. Some of Dickenson’s most famous poems include “‘Hope’ is The Thing with Feathers; I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed; Because I Could Not Stop for Death. Each of these poems is about expressing her current feelings and emotions, and nothing and nobody

At the beginning of the year, Mrs. Stigger, my English teacher made us do a poetry analysis on the poem Hope by Emily Dickenson; however, I had no clue what her poem meant, or why it was even a well known poem. I couldn’t understand that there were many underlying meanings to her poem, her poem wasn’t boring. I misunderstood the craft of a poet using rhetorical devices in their writing and knowing that one would only understand if they took the time to dissect

Emily Dickenson's poems do not appear to be particularly complex at first glance. Written in common measure it's easy to see the couplets and read them as a nursery rhyme or song. Looking deeper we can see how playful Dickenson could be with her poetry and how willing she was to push the silence of hyphens and commas to mean something more. Her understanding of pace is truly remarkable. Her work becomes deeper and more efficient.

Emily Dickinson is an exceptional poet so much so that it is extremely difficult to place her in any single tradition she seems to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. Her poetic form, with her customary four-line stanzas, ABCB rhyme schemes, and alternations in iambic meter between tetrameter and trimeter, is derived from Psalms and Protestant hymns, but Dickinson so thoroughly appropriates the forms interposing her own long, rhythmic dashes designed to interrupt the meter and indicate short pauses that the resemblance seems quite faint. Her subjects are often parts of the topography of her own psyche; she explores her own feelings with painstaking and often painful honesty but never loses sight of their universal poetic application;

“These are secular poems evoking a poignant sense of desolation and loneliness in their descriptions of the separation of lovers, the sorrows of exile, or the terrors and attractions of the sea…”(Britannica). The Exeter Book is a collection of old english poetry from the years of the Vikings and Viking culture. The book contains a multitude of poems from all different perspectives, including one of the oldest known writings from a woman. Out of the bountiful amount of poems in this book, three were examined. These three poems from Exeter Book were The Seafarer, The Wanderer, and The Wife’s Lament. In these three poems from Exeter Book three messages of loneliness, exile, and the effect of relationships appear throughout them.

Theodora Ward, a transcriber and analyst of Dickinson’s letters, describes the letters and poems to take on “acute sensitivity.” (Ward)

Emily Dickinson’s use of imagery and language cultivates on the portrayal of her poems. Imagery empowers the reader to

The Titanic, born from human greed and wed to fate’s punishment, is a modern icon of decadence. However, Hardy re-imagines this icon in his poem The Convergence of the Twain. Instead of an explicit critique of the ship’s ostentatious vanity, Hardy sees The Titanic’s sinking as the judgment for its “vaingloriousness” and a product of the ship’s conception, development, and wedding to fate.

Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey” when compared to Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner argues that the poet creates meaning from surroundings by offering a background story or outright pointing to a moral of the circumstances. However, Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner states that the reader is the one to decipher meaning from the circumstances; the poet can only create the story, but ultimately leaves it up to the readers to derive the meaning for themselves.

Sir Philip Sidney argued for the positive value of imaginative literature in The Defence of Poesy, in which he claimed that literature should ‘teach and delight’. The influence of Sidney’s claim can be seen in John Skelton’s work ‘The Bowge of Courte’ and Thomas Nashe’s ‘The Choise of Valentines’. Skelton’s ‘The Bowge of Court’, has been described as ‘a fifteenth-century dream vision built on the model of the morality play’ and ‘The Choise of Valentines’ as ‘an Ovidian erotic poem’, which elaborates ‘a tale of impotence and erotic substitution.’ While both poems are rich in their differences, due to the satiric and erotic genres, they share the similarity of belonging to a very specific time. By examining the origins d interpreting Sidney’s presentation of the phrase ‘teach and delight’, the ways in which Skelton and Nashe’s texts maintain Sidney’s claim can be discussed. Skelton teaches through ‘The Bowge of Court’, by employing allegory as a way to critique the court, and uses satire as a form of poetic council. Nashe teaches in ‘The Choise of Valentines’ by presenting his text and an example of originality and satirising the idea of performance. Skelton delights in his text by using the symbol of the ship as an ornament added to the truth of the poem. Nashe delights in his text by the freshness of language used and the originality of his poetry.