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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.
“I’m Nobody! Who Are You?” falls in line with what readers have come to expect about Dickinson’s poetic style. For example, the title comes from the first line of the poem, which editors added later; Dickinson did not title her poems. It was also quite common during Dickinson’s time to write in meter for poetry and lyrics, particularly in alternating syllables of six to eight per line and using iambs (an unstressed/stressed syllabic pattern), which Dickinson does in this poem. Dickinson regularly wrote in first-person with a speaker who sometimes did represent her and other times did not. In “I’m Nobody! Who Are You?” it is likely she was representing herself and her feelings in celebration of anonymity. On the other hand, perhaps the “I” does not represent her, as she could be satirizing the sentimental poets of her time who praised the heavens and completely downplayed their human role in all of it.
Dickinson’s regular use of dashes (not a choice her friend and literary critic Thomas Wentworth would recommend) rather than a period or a comma, and her capitalization of words within the poem, have become typical of her work and are found in this poem as well.
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
Because I Could Not Stop for Death
Because I Could Not Stop for Death
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
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