Vocab + Concepts

Question 1

Idiosyncratic

Answer 1

Dickinson’s use of captialisation and punctuation, particularly dashes, is highly idiosyncratic. Synonyms: unique, unusual, quirky

Question 2

Appropriate

Answer 2

In the first half of Because, Dickinson appropriates contemporary Christian views around death. Synonyms: harnesses

Question 3

Nihilistic

Answer 3

rejecting all religious and moral principals in the belief that life is meaningless
By the end of Because poem, the speaker’s view of death is much more nihilistic.

Question 4

Sentimentalise

Answer 4

In the first half of Because, Dickinson sentimentalises death. Synonyms: idealise, romanticise

Question 5

American Transcendentalism

Answer 5

• Transcendentalism is an American literary, philosophical, religious, and political movement of the early nineteenth century, - Stimulated by English Romanticism, the transcendentalists operated with the sense that a new era was at hand.
• They were critics of their contemporary society for its unthinking conformity, and urged that each person find, “an original relation to the universe”
• this relation was sought in solitude amidst nature and in writing.

Question 6

Deathbed Vigils

Answer 6

-Deathbed vigils were particularly important to those with religious faith, since this was believed to be the moment when the soul left the body for another world, to meet the Redeemer.
- The moment of death was of particular interest to Calvinists, who believed the behaviour of the dying provided an indication of whether or not the soul was saved.
- If the dying person demonstrated acceptance and died calmly, the soul would could be sure of its election; if the dying person struggled against death, he or she was not likely to be destined for heaven.
- The Victorian cult of Death was born - honouring a ‘Good death’ / ‘Ars Moriendi’

Question 7

Bathetic

Answer 7

The fly’s instruction creates a bathetic end to the speaker’s deathbed vigil. Synonyms: anticlimactic

Question 8

Corporeal

Answer 8

The fly represents the corporeal aspects of death. Synonyms: carnal, fleshy

Question 9

Mundane

Answer 9

The fly symbolises mundanity in what it supposed to be the speaker’s most poignant moment. Synonyms: pedestrian, monotonous, banal

Question 10

Inured

Answer 10

If you are inured to something unpleasant, you have become used to it so that it no longer affects you.
It seems that many of the people in opp house are quite inured to death, treating it in a very clinical and business-like fashion.

Question 11

Macabre

Answer 11

You describe something such as an event
or story as macabre when it
is strange and horrible or upsetting, usually because it involves death or injury. Similar in meaning to gothic.

Question 12

Obfuscate

Answer 12

To obfuscate something means to deliberately make something seem confusing, or alternatively, to deny, or dissipate, or deliberately obscure something’s true meaning.

Question 13

Officious

Answer 13

If someone is officious, they are assertive of authority in a domineering way, especially with regard to trivial matters.

Question 14

Perfunctory

Answer 14

A perfunctory action is done quickly and carelessly and shows a lack of interest in what you are doing.

Question 15

Ubiquitous

Answer 15

If you describe something as ubiquitous, you mean that it seems to be everywhere. When you put a strong chilli into a dish, some people might say that the flavour of the chilli becomes ubiquitous.

Question 16

Ars Moriendi

Answer 16

In which the last moments of a person’s life are recounted and mourners seek out in the dying person’s conduct signs that they are one of the ‘elect.’

Question 17

Gnomic

Answer 17

A gnomic remark is brief and seems wise but is difficult to understand.

Question 18

Ineffable

Answer 18

You use ineffable to say that something is so great or extreme that it cannot be described in words.

Question 19

Mutable

Answer 19

Able to or tending to change.

Question 20

Periphrasis or Circumlocution

Answer 20

A roundabout way of expressing something; elliptical expression.

Question 21

Vate Poets

Answer 21

• The poet as ‘vate’ means that the poet believes themselves to have seer or prophet-like capacities
• ‘a man…endued with a more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness, who has a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive soul, than are supposed to be common among human kind.’
• They believed through their work, they touched the Divine.

Question 22

Sepentine

Answer 22

Having the qualities of a snake/serpent. This word always has negative connotations – if someone or thing has serpentine qualities, they are
evilly cunning or subtle; treacherous.
- Death is represented as a serpent in Frost

Question 23

Gelid

Answer 23

Means freezing.

Question 24

Encroach

Answer 24

If one thing encroaches on another, it spreads or becomes stronger, and
slowly begins to restrict the power, range, or effectiveness of another thing.

Question 25

Inimical (to)

Answer 25

Conditions that are inimical to something make it difficult for that thing to exist or do well.

Question 26

Insidious

Answer 26

Something that
is insidious is unpleasant or dangerous and develops gradually without being noticed.

Question 27

Lacuna/lacunae

Answer 27

a gap or space, esp in a book or manuscript
- Dickinson’s dashes can sometimes be thought of as lacunae, as empty gaps or spaces.

Question 28

Abnegate/Abjure

Answer 28

renounce or reject

Question 29

Ancillary

Answer 29

providing necessary support to the primary activities or operation of an
organization, system, person etc.

Question 30

Foray (into)

Answer 30

If you make a foray into a new or unfamiliar type of activity, you start to become involved in it. You can refer to a short journey that you make as a foray if
it seems to involve excitement or risk, for example because it is to an unfamiliar place or because you are looking for a particular thing.

Question 31

Pugnacious

Answer 31

someone who is pugnacious is always ready to quarrel or start a fight

Question 32

Quandary

Answer 32

a state of perplexity or uncertainty over what to do in a difficult situation

Question 33

Subsumed

Answer 33

include or absorb (something) in something else

Question 34

Indefatigable

Answer 34

persisting tirelessly

Question 35

Catalexis

Answer 35

omission or incompleteness usually in the last foot of a line in metrical verse

Question 36

Belie

Answer 36

If one thing belies another, it hides the true situation and so creates a false idea or image of someone or something.

Question 37

Lugubrious

Answer 37

If you say that someone or something is lugubrious, you mean that they
are sad rather than lively or cheerful.

Question 38

Perturbation

Answer 38

Perturbation is a state of anxiety and agitation.

Question 39

Plangent

Answer 39

A plangent sound is a deep, loud sound, which may be sad.

Question 40

Precarious/ Precarity

Answer 40

If your situation is precarious, you are not
in complete control of events and might fail in what you are doing at any moment.

Question 41

Epizeuxis

Answer 41

the repetition of words in succession within a same sentence.

Question 42

Polysyndeton

Answer 42

coordinating conjunctions—words such as “and,” “or,” and “but” that join other words or clauses in a sentence into relationships of equal importance—are used several times in close succession, particularly where conjunctions would normally not be present at all.

Question 43

Amorphous/ Amorphousness

Answer 43

Something that is amorphous has no clear shape or structure.

Question 44

Sisyphean

Answer 44

A task/predicament that is laborious, futile and pointless