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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 Taste a Liquor Never Brewed” by Emily Dickinson (1851)
The poem reveals how Dickinson playfully used the metaphor of intoxication to suggest joy, in this case the poet being blown away by the delights of a spring morning. The “inebriate of Dew,” the poet happily describes herself as the “little Tippler / Leaning against the--Sun.”
“Psalm of Life” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1838)
With all the ponderous seriousness typical of the Fireside Poets whom Dickinson both admired and disdained, Longfellow offers his inspirational message about the joy and rewards of life despite the difficulties. “Be a hero in the strife,” he advises. Strife cannot last. This contrasts with Dickinson’s far more muted argument that strife is not something you should expect to overcome. Strife is the very element of character.
“When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” by Walt Whitman (1865)
Written on the occasion of the national trauma over Lincoln’s assassination, the poem weighs down within the heavy gravity of loss and anger and bitterness. The poem uses the assassination to despair over the world that Dickinson counsels is the world we all must live in; a world of unexpected loss and grief.
By Emily Dickinson
A Bird, came down the Walk
Emily Dickinson
A Clock stopped—
Emily Dickinson
A narrow Fellow in the Grass (1096)
Emily Dickinson
Because I Could Not Stop for Death
Emily Dickinson
"Faith" is a fine invention
Emily Dickinson
Fame Is a Fickle Food (1702)
Emily Dickinson
Hope is a strange invention
Emily Dickinson
"Hope" Is the Thing with Feathers
Emily Dickinson
I Felt a Cleaving in my Mind
Emily Dickinson
I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain
Emily Dickinson
If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking
Emily Dickinson
If I should die
Emily Dickinson
If you were coming in the fall
Emily Dickinson
I heard a Fly buzz — when I died
Emily Dickinson
I'm Nobody! Who Are You?
Emily Dickinson
Much Madness is divinest Sense—
Emily Dickinson
Success Is Counted Sweetest
Emily Dickinson
Tell all the truth but tell it slant
Emily Dickinson
The Only News I Know
Emily Dickinson
There is no Frigate like a Book
Emily Dickinson