Hope
Hope
Hope
BY EMILY DICKINSON
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 Ive heard it in the chillest land And on the strangest Sea Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.
Introduction
Emily Dickinson was a reclusive American poet. Unrecognized in
her own time, Dickinson is known posthumously for her unusual
use of form and syntax.
Born on December 10, 1830, in Amherst, Massachusetts, Emily
Dickinson left school as a teenager to live a reclusive life on the
family homestead. There, she filled notebooks with poetry and
wrote hundreds of letters. Dickinson's remarkable work was
published after her deathon May 15, 1886, in Amherstand she
is now considered one of the towering figures of American
literature.
Because Emily Dickinson lived much of her life inside, her poetry
focuses on her inner struggles.
Dickinson defines hope by comparing it to a bird (a metaphor) .
Dickinson is using metaphor of a small bird to carry her point that
hope stays alive within us despite all of our troubles and, like a
small bird that sings in the face of the strongest wind and most
powerful storm, hope never asks for anything from us--it is just
there to help us when we need it.
Stanza one
Hope is a "thing" because it is a feeling; the thing/feeling is like a
bird. Dickinson uses the standard dictionary format for a
definition; first she places the word in a general category
("thing"), and then she differentiates it from everything else in
that category. For instance, the definition of a cat would run
something like this: a cat is a mammal (the first part of the
definition places it in a category); the rest of the definition would
be "which is nocturnal, fur-bearing, hunts at night, has pointed
ears, etc. (the second part of the definition differentiates the cat
from other all mammals).
How would hope "perch," and why does it perch in the soul? As
you read this poem, keep in mind that the subject is hope and
that the bird metaphor is only defining hope. Whatever is being
said of the bird applies to hope, and the application to hope is
Dickinson's point in this poem.
The bird "sings." Is this a good or a bad thing? The tune is
"without words." Is hope a matter of words, or is it a feeling about
the future, a feeling which consists both of desire and
expectation? Psychologically, is it true that hope never fails us,
that hope is always possible?
Stanza two
Why is hope "sweetest" during a storm? When do we most need
hope, when things are going well or when they are going badly?
Sore is being used in the sense of very great or severe; abash
means to make ashamed, embarrassed, or self-conscious.
Essentially only the most extreme or impossible-to-escape storm
would affect the bird/hope. If the bird is "abashed" what would
happen to the individual's hope? In a storm, would being "kept
warm" be a plus or a minus, an advantage or a disadvantage?
Stanza three
What kind of place would "chillest" land be? Would you want to
vacation there, for instance? Yet in this coldest land, hope kept
the individual warm. Is keeping the speaker warm a desirable or