P O E T O F PA RA D OX

EMILY DICKINSON

LITERARY DEVICES

• Exact Rhyme: two or more words have identical sounds in their final stressed syllables• One/Begun

• Slant rhyme: a close, but not exact rhyming sound, meant to disturb the reader’s ear and draw emphasis• One/Stone• Eye/Majority

• Assonance: the repetition of similar vowel sounds in a line of poetry• Hope is a thing with feathers (“i” repeated)

• Paradox: a statement that seems to contradict itself but suggests some important truth; a contradiction that can be explained as true.

LITERARY DEVICES

• Consonance: repetition of constants in the middle or ends of words in a line of poetry• Some late visitor entreating entrance at my door

• Personification: when an object, animal, or idea is given human characteristics• Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for

me

• Inversion: changing the natural order of words to fit rhyme scheme or meter• Inebriate of Air—am I

THEMES IN DICKINSON’S POETRY

Dickinson’s poetry explores the relationship between• Love and loss• Faith and Doubt• Death/immortality (does it even exist) and Life• Nature and Humanity• The power of God and The power of the individual

imagination