Dickinson Checklists Flashcards
1
Q
Fly Checklist
A
- Onomatopoeic verb ‘buzz’ -> disruptive opening line/flys intrusion/ fly symbolically assoc. w/ death + decay + corporeal elements of death opposed to ethereal
- ‘Between heaves of a storm’ -> speakers death= moment of quietude inbtw. twin ‘storms’ of life + afterlife
- Synecdoche ‘eyes’ = implies genuine grief but also spectatorship - mourners gathered to witness ‘king’ in hopes of assurance of speakers ascension but ‘king’ bathetically substituted for ‘fly’/ vigil not going to plan
- ‘Last onset’ = oxymoron convey speakers faith in afterlife
- Cacophonous verb ‘interposed’ as fly returns to disrupt perfect DB vigil
- ‘Blue - uncertain - stumbling buzz’ - synaesthesia as senses fail (fusion w/ nature in death- because) + dashes rep erratic movement of fly
- ‘I could not see to see’ - diacope= i could not know to know/ show speakers + mourners strict adherence to Ars M - still do not have assurance of resurrection -> death is mysterious + vastly unknowable
2
Q
Slant Checklist
A
-Connotations of ‘slant’- paradoxical b/c confusing rather than illuminating + ‘winter afternoons’ suggest light + nature synonymous w/ death = destabilising romantic view of nature
- Ponderous connotations of ‘oppresses’ + ‘heft’ + alliterative oxymoron ‘heavenly hurt’ = religion which is supposed to provide comfort only accentuates sp’s sense of dislocation -> ballad metre = hymnal qualities - subversive
- Uncharacteristic use of full rhyme belies bleakness of speakers disconsolation tone
- Sharp assonance ‘internal difference’ + ungrammatical comma ‘where the meanings, are’ show sp internal suffering
- ‘No scar’ + ‘Seal of despair’ evoke sp sense of entrapment
- Imperial diction suggests nature = conduit of callous God
- Personification of landscape + simile return to idea of death within nature evoking sp’s despair over own mortality
3
Q
Publication Checklist
A
- (Explicit metaphor to define publication→contrast w Hope)
- Internal rhyme + cacophonous consonance stressed trochaically of ‘publication’ + ‘auction’ = excoriating tone (+ connotations of ‘foul’ +
‘auction’) - Enjambment between S1 + S2 to emphasise qualifier ‘possibly’
- Enjambment across lines 5-7 to show speaker’s conviction
-Imagery of whiteness in S2 to connote purity of being unpublished (+ contrast w inky black of printing press) - Poem’s chief juxtaposition between commercial + spiritual diction e.g. ‘invest’ + ‘snow’
- Simple diction→aphoristic tone of ‘thought belong to Him who gave it’
- Debasing connotations of ‘corporeal’ + ‘sell’ vs imperial diction of ‘royal air’
- Serpentine sibilance of S4 to show publication = malevolently tempting (+ allusion to Judas)
- Uncharacteristically unequivocal command to resolve definition: ‘reduce no human spirit to disgrace of price’
4
Q
Opposite House Checklist
A
- Characteristically abrupt opening line conveys details of neighbour’s death with impassive economy = typical of broader cultural tendency
connotations of ‘rustle’ + 3 quick monosyllables ‘in and out’ characterize mourners as businesslike + perfunctory - Perfunctory connotations of ‘flings’ + pns ‘it’ + ‘that’ imply abject disgust at deathbed / c + d around ‘ – on that –‘ suggest
repulsed fixation - ‘Stiffly’ connotes minister’s officious manner + rigor mortis / ‘owned all the Mourners — now —’ c + d around now suggest minister’s officious authority only temporary as he too will one day die
- ‘Man of the appalling trade’ = euphemism for undertaker shows societal attempts to elide death’s abjectness (gothic connotations of ‘appalling’)
- Line break could signify coffin leaving house + sp’s limited insight
- ‘Dark parade’ oxymoron convey’s ED’s VVS that no amount of routine or ritual can obfuscate death’s pervasive Gothicism
5
Q
Blank Checklist
A
- Repetition + capitalisation of “Blank” accentuates sp’s sense of endless, inescapable emptiness / by severing tetrameter line after ‘blank’ ED harnesses implied space at end of line to further emphasise the theme of absence
- ‘Threadless way’ introduces conceit of despair as being lost in maze→allusion to Theseus subverted to show despair as meaningless, directionless etc.
- Metaphor: effortful + depersonalizing connotations of ‘pushed’ + mundanity of ‘mechanic’ as if sp simply going through motions
- Fatalism of ‘To stop — or perish — or advance — ‘emphasized by dashes
- All rhymes slanted skewing acoustic expectation + creating a constant state of deferral, of ends nearly arrived at but never realized
- Sonic parallelism of severed tetrameter lines continues conceit→sp think maze ended but lack of dash = no end
- Harsh consonance of ‘d’ (‘end’, ‘gained’, ‘beyond;, ‘disclosed’ etc) gives sense of enclosure/entrapment
- Paradox of ‘twas lighter – to be blind’ = 2 readings: easier to give up/turn away from emotions OR romantic idea intuition will provide enlightenment
6
Q
Blazing Checklist
A
- Conceit of sunlight as juggler of many guises
- Compressed quatrains to form octet + no dashes→invigorating rush of sun’s rise + fall
- Progressive verbs (+ trochees) → invigorating + dynamic
- Colour symbolism → regality of sunrise + sunset
- Connotations of ‘quenching’ death of light evoking satisfaction X melancholy (contrast Slant + Frost)
- Simile ‘leaping like leopard’ guise evokes sun’s feline gracefulness as it rises from the east
- Just as the sun has risen the guise abruptly changes to an old women ‘laying her spotted face to die’ → death in nature equated w human mortality but bittersweet
- Conceit of juggler revealed in final line as darkness arrives→bittersweet tone - sun has put on an impressive show albeit ephemeral
7
Q
Two Butterflies Checklist
A
- Conceit: 2 b’flies rep N’s sublime beauty + capacity to inspire imagination
- Personifying verbs ‘waltzed’, ‘stepped’ + ‘rested’ evoke power of speaker’s poetic imagination
- luminous diction ‘noon, firmament, beam’ emphasizes bflies’ beauty + also gives them radiant ethereal quality foreshadowing flight to alternative heavenly realm
- ‘beam’ = sunbeam or boundary between mortal world + other realm
- ‘and then – ‘ tone of sublime astonishment→medial caesura replicates awe-filled gasp of speaker
- metaphor of b’flies as seafarers – ‘sea’ + ‘port’ + ‘never mentioned’→poetic imagination capable of perceiving unknown realms
- S3 reverses logic of previous stanza – now poet only one who X see bflies→fitful dashes = failure/fragmentation of poetic imagination to sustain
8
Q
Frost Checklist
A
- Conceit: frost = death + flower = mortal life
- Imperative ‘secure your flower’ = imperious tone
- Simile ‘like sailors fighting with a leak’ foreshadows futility of speaker’s efforts to evade death
- Anaphora + dashes ‘to Sea – to mountain – to the Sun’ show each of speaker’s failed attempts to save flower of life + destabalising romantic belief in nature’s regenerative power
- S3 – lack of Dickinsonian dashes + severed tetrameter line + verbs ‘wedged’ + ‘pried’ show speaker’s Sisyphean effort to save flower / simile to contrasts the ease with which the malevolent ‘narrow snake’ of death in nature is able to overcome speaker’s efforts
- Plosive allit ‘beauty bent’ as flower finally succumbs
- Parallelism ‘we hated Death and hated Life’ = speaker’s realization that life + death are inextricably
linked but not harmoniously, as in transcendentalist tradition but cruelly by a callous God
9
Q
Because Checklist
A
- ED harnesses sentimental motif of death as personified chivalric ‘kindly’ suitor through conceit of sp as a bride + death as bridegroom
- Opening stanza’s strongly iambic metre + exact rhyme of ‘me’ + immortality’ predictability to carriage’s movement + sp’s ease despite imminence of death
- internal long vowel sounds of ‘slowly,’ ‘drove’ and ‘no’ endow death with a soporific appeal, suggesting easeful transition btw this life + beyond
- S3 = metaphor for sp’s life: ‘school’, ‘field of grain’ + ‘setting sun’
- rhotic allit of ‘recess’ + ‘ring’ + curious verb ‘strove’ produce sense of life’s effortfulness, even for children, + counterpoint
to sp’s leisurely journey - Metrical break of S4 as ED now moves to destabilize transcendentalist view of death as easeful
- Sp’s loss of agency as they move from subject to object position ‘or rather - he passed us -’
- Sp now ill-prepared for death with their ‘gossamer gown’ doing little to protect them from death’s ‘quivering chill’ – icy assonance
- Rather than church sp arrives at grave – ‘swelling in the ground’ abject connotations of ‘swelling’
- Optional analysis of S6
10
Q
Hope Checklist
A
- oblique conceit = elliptical beginning to show ‘hope’ not always easy to see
- verbs ‘perches’ + ‘sings’ continue conceit→sometimes not there but always returns / not always immediately
recognisable - ‘never’ + ‘at all’ = hyperbolic + implies perseverance of hope / liquid consonance of ‘all’ = hope ringing through universe
- ‘sweetest - in the Gale – is heard –’ superlative adj + imagery of storm shows hope strongest in diff times
- Contrast btw ‘sore storm’ + ‘little bird’ = hope almost unbeatable
- ‘so many warm’ = hope provides comfort to masses
- 1st pers pn as sp reflects on own r’ship w hope in their darkest ‘chilliest’ moments
- C+ D around ‘never’ reinforces hope indefatigable (persisting tirelessly)
- ‘crumb’ hope gives so much + costs nothing
11
Q
Loaded Gun Checklist
A
- Conceit of sp’s life as ‘loaded gun’/adj ‘loaded’ gives sense of dormant but frustrated potential
- connotations of ‘in corners’ – women left to languish under patriarchy
- Incl pn ‘we’ = sp + master→supposed sense of equality + purpose
- Predatory verb ‘hunt’ + shift to pres tense give sp sense of excitement + immediacy (contrast to S1)
- Doe = fem deer suggests women must abnegate their femininity or identity in order to be valued in man’s world
- lack of any rhyme in S2 may imply sp’s agency = illusory
- S5 tonal shift “To foe of His - I’m deadly foe - “ accentuates sp’s claim that Master’s enemy is their ‘foe’ suddenly sound cocky → wants to make it known only takes one shot to bring down her Master’s enemies
- L19 personifies gun as both organ (“Yellow Eye”) + appendage (“Thumb”)→sp saying whoever on other side of gun is out of luck; she’ll kill them quickly + they won’t “stir” again / irony that w/o master, there is no ‘I’ at all; the gun cannot pull its own trigger, no matter how ‘emphatic’ it imagines its thumb to be
- S6 = aphoristic + paradoxical riddle as gun - sp realizes power to ‘die’ also means master has lived unlike gun which has ‘power to kill’ but cannot live/be free
12
Q
Saddest Noise Checklist
A
- Perfect common metre belies sp’s paradoxical view towards nature
- anaphora of contrasting superlative adjs connotes intense reaction to nature + repetition noise connotes abrasiveness subverting
Riverdi tradition - night = metaphorical end of winter / delicious + sweetest do suggest joys of spring but ambivalence b/c also ‘sad’ + ‘sweet’
- S2 summer personified as ‘hesitating’ summer unbearably close + fearful of passage of time
- languorous assonance + liquid consonance of ‘almost too heavenly near’ anticipates summer’s arrival + spring stretching out
- S3 it = birdsong / abrupt tonal shift + subversion of riverdi b/c rebirth of spring synonymous w death
- verb connotations of ‘sauntered’ = easeful, confident, relaxed → evokes happier past / melancholic tone w past tense
- sibilant allit suggestive of malice / conns of ‘sorcery’ = bad magic / death or ‘separation’ given sense of wickedness
- incl pns = shared human exp (protomodern) link w Slant + Frost
- ‘siren throats’ allusion to Homer’s Odyessy→bird song conflates beauty + death as sirens’ does / ‘almost’ important qualifier stops short of negating beauty b/c to cancel death would be to cancel life
- Optional analysis of S5
13
Q
Narrow Fellow Checklist
A
- oblique metaphor ‘narrow fellow’ / personification of snake combines familiar with alien / cordial conns of ‘fellow’ w constrictive conns of ‘narrow’
- ‘in the grass’ ED harnessing idiom ‘snake in the grass’ (traitor) + destabilizing it to combine familiar with strange / allusion to Edenic snake
- Sibilance moves from internal to fronted as snake appears suddenly + sneakily
- Simile ‘as with a comb’ = likens ordinary + everyday object w danger / jux btw wild + civilized
- S3 = retrospective flashback of sp’s encounter w ‘fellow’ as child / change in metre = tighter rhythm / octet meaning that the longest sustained lexical unit takes place in proximity with the snake itself / speaker = frozen + at mercy of snake
- ‘boggy acre’ ‘floor to cool for corn’ = suggestive of snake’s malevolence / not suitable for human purposes like storing food → destabalises transcendentalist notion than humans can be at one w nature
- ‘nature’s people’ = sp’s desire for personified nature / attempt to restore transcendentalist view of nature
- plosive allit of ‘b’ + ‘t’ in final couplet convey’s sp’s terror / imagery of constriction’ tighter breathing’ + flesh shrinking w fear ‘zero at the bone’ / ironic use of full rhyme as speaker has become more misaligned w nature than when slant rhyme was used / ‘zero’ connotes nothingness + problematizes trans notion than nature affirms one’s identity
14
Q
Letter Checklist
A
- Introduces conceit of poem as letter→poetry as form of communication / poet cut off in world of ‘letters’ (textuality)
- ‘World’ personified through capitalization = active recipient
- enjambment + end-stopping harnesses then destabilises congeniality of epistolary form / implies hostile or
indiff ‘World’ - allit pair of ‘nature’ + ‘news’ shows God in nature + nature in God which sp wants to covey + feels is important part of poetic vocation
- ‘her truth’ = N’s msg / sp being divinely enacted upon→God’s truth committed in to ED’s hands but she doesn’t fully understand or is not in control of the writing process/ or sp entrusts N’s msg to unseen hands (who aren’t writing back) / shows sp X in control of giving/receiving msgs (trans idea that vate-poet spread’s God’s word)
- full rhyme of ‘see’ + ‘me’ = unification / dash before ‘-of me’ = dislocation/isol
15
Q
Funeral Checklist
A
- Regular iambic pulse of common metre + uncharacteristic full rhyme intensifies psychological unravelling of sp
- Tactile verb ‘felt’ + visceral noun ‘brain’ convey sp’s mental anguish manifests physically
- Sp’s debilitating thoughts charatcerised as ‘Mourners’ in conceit + captialised to give sense of maddening power over sp
- Epizeuxis of ‘treading - treading’ as thoughts wear down sp
- simile ‘like a drum’ a sp X make out words only sounds = alienation + loss of psych cohesion
- ‘boots of lead’ = ponderous diction again highlights profundity of sp’s anguish
- synecdoche ‘ear’ as sp’s dislocation reduces them to single bio entity
- 2 readings of S5: L17: Escalated polysyndeton = intensification of sp’s suffering OR revelation / ‘plank in reason broke’ = metaphor for speaker’s complete loss of sanity OR for moment of revelation / plosive ‘d’ “ diacope of ‘down’, ‘down’ = dramatic breakdown OR epiphany / ‘finished knowing’ = finished sanity/reason OR state of anguish end with moment of revelation / break from full rhyme = sp completely disconnected from world OR broken free from despair
