"986" and "A Narrow Fellow in the Grass"

365 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: nature in dickinson's poetry

In Emily Dickinson's poem 986 the reader learns about the theme of nature-how nature can be presented as a non-harmful presence until one realizes the opposite is true. Incorporated in this poem are many poetic devices which vary from stanza to stanza. It is important to have a general understanding of the theme and certain poetic devices from a close read of this poem. Dickinson's poem 986 can be referred to as "A Narrow Fellow in the Grass" (not the actual title), which guides readers to a theme based on nature. At first, the speaker experiences nature from a point of view of understanding and friendliness towards the animal presented in the poem. However, by the final quatrain the reader learns of the fear that the creature could bring. The speaker is knowledgeable about this "narrow fellow" which indicates his need for a personified nature that he wants to interact among. The first two stanzas are both quatrains as well as the last two stanzas. In between these two sets of stanzas there is an eight line central stanza. The style of Dickinson's poem is quite unique because of her consistency with lines that can be flipped around and appear the same. "A Narrow Fellow in the Grass" is presented by an adult man and not by Emily Dickinson herself since one can see he is remembering his boyhood experiences. Also, in the poem the speaker directly addresses the audience, "You may have met Him--did you not"(3), which indicates a type of relationship between the reader and the speaker. The poem is referring to a description of an animal: a snake. In the beginning of the poem the reader is able to observe an admiration for the snake from the speaker. Dickinson enables the person who reads the poem to visualize the creature by calling the snake, "A spotted shaft" (6), "Nature's People" (17) and also a "Whiplash" (13). As well as visual images, there is an auditory image. The sound of a hiss in the word "grass" in the poem relates to the sound a snake makes. When a poet uses a consonant like "s" repeatedly, it is known as alliteration. Also, the reiteration of the s sound is seen throughout the poem. For example, "occasionally rides" (2) and "his notice sudden is" (4). In the first two stanzas readers are introduced to a pleasant snake.

Show More
Related

  • The Divinity of Nonconformists

    812 Words  | 2 Pages

    only this, but Dickinson illustrates poetic skill in the unity of the poem. She makes her

    Read More

  • Emily Dickinson's Because I Could Not Stop For Death

    727 Words  | 2 Pages

    Dickinson organizes the lines into quatrains—stanzas containing four lines—which are frequently used in religious hymns. She chooses this arrangement of verse in order to ordain a religious aspect into the poem, which does well

    Read More

  • Because I Could Not Stop For Death Emily Dickinson Analysis

    1149 Words  | 3 Pages

    Then, she says, “we paused before a house that seemed a swelling of the ground” (lines17-18) as a metaphor for her grave. Her welcoming tone continues as she uses a house, which isknown to be a friendly environment, to describe the place she is buried once she dies.Throughout the poem, there is a definite rhythm scheme which helps keep the poemsoothing. Rhythm is very important because it dictates the direction; whether it is a positive ornegative direction. When there is a nice rhythm it keeps the flow in a nice harmony which showsthe poem is meant to have a positive attitude. The first and third line in every stanza are made upof eight syllables, four feet, and the whole poem uses the basic iambic meter. This furtherintensifies the poem by helping create a flow. The use of rhymes and slant rhymes also give thepoem a flow. "Me" rhymes with "immortality" and, farther down the poem, with "civility" and,finally, "eternity." There are also slant rhymes like "chill" and "tulle" which helps balance out therhythm. Dickinson also capitalized nouns, which intensified the structure to help the rhythm ofthe poem. Capitalization makes the words stand out more which emphasizes their importance.Those dashes have a

    Read More

  • Emily Dickinson's Disdain for Egotistical Human Beings

    523 Words  | 2 Pages

    Dickinson tucks away a series of morose words in every line with the exception of line four. One must first examine the word choice of the first word and the first line. The use of the word “Apparently” creates a standard for irony and sardonicism that is seen throughout the poem. The scenario constructed leads the audience to presuppose that an entity such as the flower should necessarily face such perils. When in fact the connotative effect is the exact opposite. If one continues down the poem to the next line she projects human emotions upon the flower when she seemingly exclaims that it is a “happy” flower. This provides an additional example of embedded irony in that the plant is being fraught with challenges yet it is happy. The projection also depicts human kinds adept ability ...

    Read More

  • because i could not stop for death

    681 Words  | 2 Pages

    In this poem, the woman did not just die but she has been dead. She is communicating from beyond the grave, by describing her journey with death. Death is portrayed as a gentleman who takes the speaker on a ride to eternity. Dickinson wrote this poem in a way that the reader is able to feel what the woman is going through. In this poem, death is seen as a passive and not as being something bad. Dickinson’s form and tone enables the reader to have an understanding of the message she is trying to convey. In this poem, each verse paints a piece of a picture for the reader and as you get to the end of the poem the picture is completed.

    Read More

  • Romanticism: Human's Connection With Nature In 'Snowbound'

    1599 Words  | 4 Pages

    Throughout the Romanticism period, human’s connection with nature was explored as writers strove to find the benefits that humans receive through such interactions. Without such relationships, these authors found that certain aspects of life were missing or completely different. For example, certain authors found death a very frightening idea, but through the incorporation of man’s relationship with the natural world, readers find the immense utility that nature can potentially provide. Whether it’d be as solace, in the case of death, or as a place where one can find oneself in their own truest form, nature will nevertheless be a place where they themselves were derived from. Nature is where all humans originated,

    Read More

  • Essay Interpreting "one Art" By Elizabeth Bishop

    369 Words  | 1 Pages

    last, which is four lines. In the first three stanzas, the poem is told in

    Read More

  • Emily Dickinson Themes

    1138 Words  | 3 Pages

    There are a few themes that are presented throughout Emily’s poems, one of themes was nature. Many poets during Dickinson time wrote about nature, but Dickinson looked at nature differently than they did, and wrote about it in a different way then they did. In a lot of her poems she writes about the mystery of nature and its qualities, while also marveling at it. Emily spent much of her time studying nature and the various aspects of it. One example of a poem where she talks about nature is “A bird came down the walk.” In this poem the bird is moving around and is in action. This bird is also oblivious to a person watching it. Emily’s point in writing this poem is to say that as the person is not seen then nature keeps moving along in its random and informal way (Borus: 44-73).

    Read More

  • Emily Dickinson 1489 Analysis

    1304 Words  | 3 Pages

    One of Emily Dickinson’s greatest skills is taking the familiar and making it unfamiliar. In this sense, she reshapes how her readers view her subjects and the meaning that they have in the world. She also has the ability to assign a word to abstractness, making her poems seemingly vague and unclear on the surface. Her poems are so carefully crafted that each word can be dissected and the reader is able to uncover intense meanings and images. Often focusing on more gothic themes, Dickinson shows an appreciation for the natural world in a handful of poems. Although Dickinson’s poem #1489 seems disoriented, it produces a parallelism of experience between the speaker and the audience that encompasses the abstractness and unexpectedness of an event.

    Read More

  • Emily Dickinson's "Tell All the Truth but Tell It Slant" Explication

    934 Words  | 2 Pages

    Alliteration is a key aspect to how the reader experiences the poem; it especially gives interest toward alliteration of the letter T. This alliteration begins in the very first line “Tell all the Truth but tell it slant-” (1.1). The alliteration on the T is used three times within the first line; however, it does not stop there. Dickinson uses the “T” sound to continually draw back to the theme of truth. Dickinson, through the use of two stanzas, four lines each, uses quite a distinct rhyme scheme to organize her poem. The second and fourth lines of each stanza are clearly examples of end rhyme, by using words such as “lies” (1.2) and “surprise” (1.4). However, every single line is not an example of end rhyme. The first and third lines rhyme words such as “slant” (1.1) and “delight” (1.3); which can be described as near rhymes for they give a small sensation of rhyming. This rhyming pattern continues for the second stanza as well. The sequence of rhyming is not arbitrarily put into practice, rather, it also adds on to the truth theme. The near rhymes Dickinson stresses to not tell the truth in its entirety, but rather, convey a little bit of truth. This is being directly compared to the almost rhyming sensatio...

    Read More

  • The Literal and Metaphorical Explainations of Death in Emily Dickinson’s Apparently With No Surprise

    700 Words  | 2 Pages

    On the exterior, the literal meaning of this poem centers on the cycles of nature. The poem opens with the lines “Apparently with no surprise / To any happy Flower / The Frost beheads it at its play” describing a flower who is sadly cut down by cold wintery frost (1-3). She shows the repetitive and constant interaction between God and nature by saying “the sun proceeds unmoved / To measure off another day / For an approving God” (6-8). This shows how the big picture aspects of life are not affected by the impact of death. Like clockwork, the cycles of nature continue on and on. To show the interactions of nature, Dickinson chooses to have alliteration between the main actors in her poem, the Flower and Frost. In a most literal sense, Dickinson appears to state that death is just but another part in the experiences of nature, uncontrolled by man, only by God. The final lines of the po...

    Read More

  • Annabel Lee Analysis Essay

    1139 Words  | 3 Pages

    In relation to structure and style, the poem contains six stanzas of varying lengths. The first, second, and fourth stanzas

    Read More

  • Emily Dickinson's Because I Could Not Stop for Death

    925 Words  | 2 Pages

    Dickinson uses many ways to get her point across. She uses metaphors, imagery, and personification. Throughout her poem she refers to death as he, giving him a human form so people could look at it differently. She also uses metaphors, like setting sun, grazing grain, and children to represent different stages of life. The rhythm also sets the mood of the poem. Since it has a darker feeling to it, readers can get the right feeling and mood about her poem to understand it better.

    Read More

  • A Critical Analysis of Judith Wright's 'the Killer'

    913 Words  | 2 Pages

    The construction of the poem is in regular four-line stanzas, of which the first two stanzas provide the exposition, setting the scene; the next three stanzas encompass the major action; and the final two stanzas present the poet's reflection on the meaning of her experience.

    Read More

  • Death In Emily Dickinson: Life And Death

    1200 Words  | 3 Pages

    To begin with the poem flows very smoothly and evenly throughout. This is because of the perfect iambic meter. Iambic meter, with its emphasis on the second syllable and the division of the lines it creates, gives the poem a feeling that life flows into death without trouble. Lines one and three both have eight syllables and the second and fourth lines have six syllables. This shows that Dickinson went out of her way to make the poem feel this way and the smooth transition of lines contrasts the overall lack of full rhyme and the dashes the make it seem choppy. The en dashes, which Dickinson is known for doing throughout her poems, are used to force the reader to stop in weird place and take pauses in awkward spots. Dickinson starts off with a cold dull and blunt entrance to the poem with the line “I heard a fly buzz -- when I died --” (Baskett 340). The first en dash separates the two main topics in the poem, the transition from life to death and the fly. In the first stanza there are only four dashes as well, proposing that the person has little interference compared to the last stanza which is preceded by the introduction of the fly “There interposed a Fly –“ (12) . Once the fly interrupts there are suddenly substantially more dashes going from three to seven because the fly has entered and this gives a uneasy feeling of the world around slowly flickering

    Read More

More about "986" and "A Narrow Fellow in the Grass"

Open Document