Emily Dickinson

By: Kadie Mullinax

Hope is the Thing with Feathers

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -That perches in the soul -And sings the tune without the words -And never stops – at all -

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard - And sore must be the storm - That could abash the little Bird That kept so many warm –

I’ve heard it in the chillest land - And on the strangest Sea - Yet, never, in Extremity, It asked a crumb – of Me

Bio• Born on December 10, 1830 in Amherst,

Massachusetts• She did not exactly have the same religious views as

what her family had. She was known for exploring her own spirituality.

• She attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley, but returned home after a year.

• She loved to bake and even though she didn’t venture away from her home much, she still managed to keep social contact with a view certain people, many through writing to them.

• No real professional life, publishers wanted to edit and change her work, but she wouldn’t allow it.

• Her work was mainly published after her death. She has had a great impact on authors and poets of the 21st century.

Quotes from the critics

Emily Dickinson wasn’t as well thought of in her time as in our time. Venturing out into something different wasn’t what publishers liked. Still, as time has went on people appreciate work like Dickinson’s. Furthermore they applaud it.

• Martin Armstrong, the English poet, said in a review, Mr. Aiken calls Emily Dickinson's poetry “perhaps the finest by a woman in the English language”.

• Other comments about Emily Dickinson "A feminine Blake,” "an epigrammatic Walt Whitman,” "a New England mystic”.

Explication Everyone can relate to this poem and we all have felt as Emily did when she wrote it. It’s about hope, and how it is there for us in our soul. Yet “the storm” meaning dark times where things are not so good, our hope can become “abashed” or broken. In the last stanza she talks of hope in the “chilliest land” or “the strangest sea” referring to times where you feel like all is lost, hope is still there. It doesn’t abandon you and asks nothing in return.

• Broken rhyming meter, use of dashes and random capitalization

• MeterLine one: dactylic Line two and four: iambic tri meterLine three: iambic quadra meter • Use of metaphor is creative: hope is a bird• Innovated style

“I Was Here” by: Lady Antebellum • You will notice me

I'll be leaving my mark like initials carvedIn an old oak tree, you wait and see

Maybe I'll write like Twain wroteMaybe I'll paint like Van GoghCure the common cold, I don't knowBut I'm ready start 'cause I know in my heart

I wanna do something that matters, say something differentSomething that sets the whole world on its earI wanna do something better with the time I've been givenI wanna try to touch a few hearts in this lifeLeave nothing less than something that says ?I was here?

I will prove you wrongIf you think I'm all talk, you're in for a shock'Cause this dream's too strong and before too long