two butterfly Flashcards
‘two butterflies went out at noon’
/waltzed up to a farm/
‘noon’+ ‘farm’ = rural setting, height summer
personifying ‘waltz’ + metrical repetition = butterflies graceful movement and exquisite beauty
‘And stepped straight through the firemament’
And rested on a beam
Line three sublime art. as butterflies ‘through’ sky
euphoria assonance -> ease butterflies disappearance
metaphorical ‘beam’= beam light at frontier between life and death
ostensible Stanza one = butterflies dearth but!! personified verb ‘stepped’ -> range motion beyond physicality + luminous diction (‘noon- firmament-beam’) suffuses S
with ethereal quality of butterflies not dying, but rather transcending therefore, butterflies symbol poetic ability which breach everyday cognition + nature’s ability inspired poet great feats imagine perception
‘bore away upon a shining sea’
connotions of ‘bore away’= enjambment line five and six -> energy sense of transparency.
metaphor of butterfly as seafarer- entices one more notion of transcendence breaching limits
butterflies, like the poet peculiar realm unknown ontology beyond limits of usual perception
‘never yet’ + ‘Their coming, mentioned- be-‘
Line seven and eight indicate the romantic notion that the ‘coming’ (ie presence) of these butterflies ( and the perceptions they represent) are ‘never’ seen or ‘mentioned; by other, apparent as they are only to the seer like eye of the poet.
‘If spoken by the distant bird-
if met in ether sea
No notice-was- to me’
stanza three reverses the logic of stanza two, as poet begins to lose sight of butterflies even though the external environment can bear witness to them.
final lines = speaker’s rueful acknowledgement of poetic ____ butterflies begin to fail
fitful dashes- breakdown previously cohesive imagery exp
‘walking’ ‘noon’ ‘upon the farm’
gives the poem a setting of high summer and imbues it with the natural pleasures of that season. butterflies= symbolically associated with transformation- rep nature’s sublime beauty and capacity to inspire romantic imagination. As such, the butterflies don’t experience a tragic rush of death- rather their death is simply a moment of transcendence to some luminous alternative unknown.
alliterative pairings ‘farm’ ‘firmament’ ‘stepping straight through the’
accentuates the effortless charm and beauty of butterflies movements, and the dashes @ end of L1 and 2 recreate the butterflies sporadic path of flight
luminous diction- noon, filament, beam
emphasises the beauty but also gives radiant ephemeral element as if foreshadowing the the butterflies flight to an alternative heavenly realm. verb ‘stepped’ and even ‘went out’= are somewhat personifying as they endow the butterfly with a range of motion. because the butterflies are metaphors for the speakers thoughts, or of the vate-like qualities of rom imag. which perceives in nature truths not visible to the common eye. like imaginative impressions, butterflies appear almost out of nowhere, and disappear ad suddenly as they arrived.
actual flight of the butterfly
is conflated with the imaginative flight of romantic imagination relate to ‘something’ because ‘prone to peripheries’ and remarks ‘birds have fled’ motif of flight assoc w bird conflated w poetic vision
‘and then’
as the speaker surrenders fully to the imaginative fantasy, ‘and then’ is to replete with excited anticipation, + medial caesura= awe filled gasp of the speaker.
diction of ‘sea and port’
Dickinson initiates another metaphor of the butterflies being sea farers, extending to the poem’s conclusion- as sea faring has connotations of transport, this reinforces different interpretations of the text-
1. for a transcendentalist, the butterflies are now ‘at one’ with another part of nature, previously foreign to its experience, its flight is now conceived in inc aquatic terms confirming the transcendentalist thought of all aspects at nature being ‘at one’ with others.
2. serves to metaphorise the poetic imagination, which uses a sublime creature (butterfly Keats nightingale) to explore an ethereal realm, a realm where butterflies can ‘bore upon a shining sea’
‘though never yet, in any port-
their coming mentioned-be-‘
this is implies the butterflies actual presence in the realm is invisible= important metaphor, since implies the strange aquatic flight of the butterflies is imagined by the speaker with the prophetic eye of the poet- vate, rather than physical eyes which renders the butterflies ‘coming’ invisible to the common eye.
