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Emily DickinsonA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Emily Dickinson’s trademark dashes create the poem’s rhythm and emphasize important words and ideas. Take, for example, the line, “My Tippet — only Tulle —” (Line 16). The dash after “tippet” (a scarf-like shawl worn over a dress) creates a pause called a caesura in the middle of the line. The following phrase, “only Tulle,” therefore stands out after this pause. The phrase notes the flimsiness of this material, tulle, amidst the dark and cold the speaker experiences.
Like many of Dickinson’s poems, “Because I could not stop for Death” employs the formal qualities of the hymns the poet knew with from attending a Calvinist Christian church. Like those hymns, the poem consists of quatrains (stanzas of four poetic lines). In fact, the reader can sing “Because I could not stop for Death” to the tune of the hymn “Amazing Grace.”
The poem’s meter is consistent with the poetic form of the ballad. Each quatrain (except the fourth, which inverts the pattern) begins with an eight-syllable line, followed by a six-syllable line, then eight, then six. These lines are also iambic: If every syllable is a “beat,” the rhythm begins with an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.
By Emily Dickinson
A Bird, came down the Walk
A Bird, came down the Walk
Emily Dickinson
A Clock stopped—
A Clock stopped—
Emily Dickinson
A narrow Fellow in the Grass (1096)
A narrow Fellow in the Grass (1096)
Emily Dickinson
"Faith" is a fine invention
"Faith" is a fine invention
Emily Dickinson
Fame Is a Fickle Food (1702)
Fame Is a Fickle Food (1702)
Emily Dickinson
Hope is a strange invention
Hope is a strange invention
Emily Dickinson
"Hope" Is the Thing with Feathers
"Hope" Is the Thing with Feathers
Emily Dickinson
I Can Wade Grief
I Can Wade Grief
Emily Dickinson
I Felt a Cleaving in my Mind
I Felt a Cleaving in my Mind
Emily Dickinson
I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain
I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain
Emily Dickinson
If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking
If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking
Emily Dickinson
If I should die
If I should die
Emily Dickinson
If you were coming in the fall
If you were coming in the fall
Emily Dickinson
I heard a Fly buzz — when I died
I heard a Fly buzz — when I died
Emily Dickinson
I'm Nobody! Who Are You?
I'm Nobody! Who Are You?
Emily Dickinson
Much Madness is divinest Sense—
Much Madness is divinest Sense—
Emily Dickinson
Success Is Counted Sweetest
Success Is Counted Sweetest
Emily Dickinson
Tell all the truth but tell it slant
Tell all the truth but tell it slant
Emily Dickinson
The Only News I Know
The Only News I Know
Emily Dickinson
There is no Frigate like a Book
There is no Frigate like a Book
Emily Dickinson