Have you got a Brook in your little heart

*Emily Dickinson

http://www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org/ed/node/66

*The life of Dickinson

*Born in Amherst, Massachusetts on December 10th in 1830.*She studied at Amherst Academy for seven years

and then went to Mount Holyoke Female Seminary for a little while before returning home.*She was known in her community for wearing

white, not greeting guests, and, later in her life, never leaving her room. *Of the 1800 she wrote, about a dozen were

published during her life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_dickinson

*Dickinson’s poems

*Emily Dickinson’s poems were filled with death and immortality.*She often leaves her readers wondering

what happened at the end.*Dickinson gets the readers curiosity going

by her love of mystery and symoblism.*Only 10 of her poems have actual titles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_dickinsonhttp://www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org/poetry_characteristics

*Critics Thoughts

*Henry W. Wells says this about Emily Dickinson’s poems, "Life is simplified, explained, and reduced to its essence by interpreting the vast whole in relation to the minute particle." *“She was deeply tinged by the mysticism of Blake, and

strongly influenced by the mannerism of Emerson....but the incoherence and formlessness of her—versicles are fatal.” Thomas Bailey Aldrich said that in 1892 in the Atlantic Monthly.*"Passionate fortitude was hers, and this is the greatest

contribution her poetry makes to the reading world. It is not expressed precisely in single poems, but rather is present in all, as key and interpretation of her meditative scrutiny.“ States R. P. Blackmur of the great poet Emily Dickinson.

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/dickinson.html#stylehttp://www.online-literature.com/dickinson/http://sites.google.com/site/emilydickinsonqsv/critical-reviews-of-dickinson-s-writing

*Have you got a brook in your little heart,*Where bashful flowers blow,*And blushing birds go down to drink,*And shadows tremble so?

*And nobody knows, so still it flows,*That any brook is there;*And yet your little draught of life* Is daily drunken there.

*Then look out for the little brook in March,*When the rivers overflow,*And the snows come hurrying from the hills,*And the bridges often go.

*And later, in August it may be,*When the meadows parching lie,*Beware, lest this little brook of life*Some burning noon go dry!

*Meter

*The first lines in each stanza have an irregular meter.*The second and forth lines have iambic

trimeter.*The third lines have iambic quadrameter.

*Rhyme Scheme

*A*B*C*B*D*E*F*E*G*H* I*H* J*K*L*K

*Theme

*The theme of Have you got a Brook in your little heart is that of love. With the summer, the love is overflowing the banks and everything is good. When the fall comes, the love is all dried up just as the brook does. Just like the brook, love will overflow and then become barren and an outline will be left. *Another theme is that love has no boundaries.

The brook contains no restrictions because if it gets too full, it over flows onto the banks. With love, there are no limitations on how much love you have for the other person.

*Figurative Language

*Bashful flowers blow*Blushing birds*Shadows tremble*Rivers overflow*Snows come hurrying from the hills*Meadows parching*Some burning noon go dry