Emily Dickinson was a 19th century American poet known for her unconventional use of form and syntax in her poems. She wrote over 1,775 poems during her life but only a small number were published before her death. Dickinson was a very private person who spent much of her adult life in near seclusion in her family home in Amherst, Massachusetts. Her poems often use imagery, figurative language, and unusual structures to explore themes of mortality, faith, and the natural world.

1. Poetry
and
Emily Dickinson

2. Types of Poetry
 Narrative poetry: tells a story
 Dramatic poetry: uses drama to present the
speech of one or more characters
 Lyric poetry: expresses the thoughts and
feelings of a single speaker

3. Elements of Poetry
 Meter: the regular pattern of stressed and
unstressed syllables in each line of poetry
 Sound devices: elements that enhance a
poem’s meaning by adding a musical quality to
the language
 Imagery: language that uses words or phrases
that appeal to the senses
 Figurative language: language used
imaginatively instead of literally

4. Ways to Describe a Poem’s Meter
 Name its main type of foot
 Foot: each unit of rhythm
Iamb ( ˘ / ) around Trochee ( / ˘ ) broken
Spondee ( / / ) airship Dactyl ( / ˘ ˘ ) argument
Anapest (˘ ˘ / ) understand
 Count the number of feet in each line
Monometer = one foot Dimeter = two feet
Trimeter = three feet Tetrameter = four feet
Pentameter = five feet
 Name the different types of stanzas
 Stanza: groups of poetic lines
Couplets = two lines Tercets = three lines
Quatrains = four lines Sestets = six lines

5. Sound Devices
 Rhyme: repetition of sounds at the ends of words
(top and drop)
 Alliteration: repetition of initial consonant sounds
(weak and weary)
 Consonance: repetition of final consonant sounds
(pull and fall)
 Assonance: repetition of similar vowel
sounds (low and tow)
 Onomatopoeia: use of a word that
sounds like what it means (fizz and hiss)

6. Figurative Language: Figures of Speech
 Simile: compares two unlike things by using like or as
 I wandered lonely as a cloud
 Metaphor: compares two unlike things without using
like or as
 Life is a broken-winged bird
 Personification: gives human traits to something
nonhuman
 Let the rain sing you a lullaby
 Oxymoron: combines two contradictory words;
expresses a paradox (an idea that seems contradictory
but is actually true)
 A wise fool

7. Emily Dickinson
 1830-1886
 Amherst, Massachusetts
 Wrote 1,775 poems 
only 7 were published
before she died
(anonymously)
 Very private, small circle
of friends

8. Emily Dickinson: Adult Life
 Traveled as young woman but
barely left hometown as an adult
 Spent the last 10 years of her
life in house/garden
 Dressed only in white
 Wouldn’t let friends/family near her
 Failinghealth  doctor was only allowed to observe
from afar
 Sometimes lowered a basket of candy/fruit to
children from her upstairs window

9. Emily Dickinson: Post-Death
 Died in the same house she’d
been born in
 Left drawers full of poems
 Gave instructions to destroy
poems after death
 Familydisobeyed  edited and
published
 Did not become fully recognized
until 1955
 Publication of The Poems of Emily
Dickinson

10. Emily Dickinson’s Poetry
 Uses both exact rhyme and slant rhyme
 Exact rhyme: two words had identical sounds in
their final syllables
 Glove - - Above
 Slantrhyme: the final sounds are similar but not
identical
 Glove - - Prove

11. “Because I could not stop for death”
 Symbols: objects/ideas representing something else
1. Death
2. Immortality
3. Slow pace of carriage
4. Recess
5. Fields of “gazing grain”
6. Setting sun
7. Gossamer gown and tulle tippet
8. House
9. Feeling that each century feels shorter than a day