What is hope is the thing with feathers about

According to the Emily Dickinson Lexicon Vendler writes , Dickinson uses the word different times across her work, with seven different meanings. These details help to make their work what it is an provide its distinctiveness. No chance.

Hope was but a timid friend; She sat without the grated den, Watching how my fate would tend, Even as selfish-hearted men. She was cruel in her fear; Through the bars one dreary day, I looked out to see her there, And she turned her face away! Already we have left behind the concrete realities of the world in favour of abstract ideas or ideals.

So, in the middle stanza, we get:. Perhaps no other poet has attained such a high reputation after their death that was unknown to them during their lifetime. Born in , Emily Dickinson lived her whole life within the few miles around her hometown of Amherst, Massachusetts. She never married, despite several romantic correspondences, and was better-known as a gardener than as a poet while she was alive.

A handful — fewer than a dozen of some 1, poems she wrote in total — appeared in an anthology, Drum Beat , published to raise money for Union soldiers fighting in the Civil War. The first word is given special emphasis with speech marks inverted commas, quotation marks as if the poet wants to define that elusive word "Hope", and she does so with metaphor.

Hope has feathers and it can, like a bird, perch in the human soul. Feathers are soft and gentle to the touch but they are also strong in flight, even on tiny birds. And feathers are made up of complex individual fibres; unity is strength. The imagery here grows stronger as the reader progresses.

Not only is Hope feathery, it can sing. It sits on a perch and sings the whole time. But the song is special for there are no words, no diction for anyone to understand rationally.

It's as if Hope is pure song, pure feeling, a deep seated longing that can take flight at any time. The song is endless. Note the double dash emphasis on—at all—and the stanza break which brings extra attention to these two little words. The first line is unusual in the use of the double dash—there are two distinct pauses which the reader has to be careful with.

Hope is always singing as we know from the first stanza but it sings the sweetest when the going gets rough, when the Gale starts to blow. So, when life is hard and things are thrown at us, the pressure relentless, there is Hope, singing through the chaos and mayhem.

The personal pronoun I appears for the first time, indicating a personal connection to this subject perhaps? Emily Dickinson thought of herself as a little bird a wren so the link is direct.

The speaker has heard the bird during the hardest, coldest times, when emotions are churning and life surreal. But even when things are extreme Hope is still there and never asks for anything. Hope gives us much but never asks for a crumb in return. It is all inspirational, yet slightly mysterious. Much Madness is divinest Sense -. My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun. Safe in their Alabaster Chambers.

Success is counted sweetest. Tell all the truth but tell it slant —. The Brain—is wider than the Sky—. There is no Frigate like a Book. There's a certain Slant of light. The Sky is low — the Clouds are mean. The Soul has bandaged moments. The Soul selects her own Society. They shut me up in Prose —.

This is my letter to the world. We grow accustomed to the Dark. Wild nights - Wild nights! One can have hope even when the odds are stacked far too high for a positive outcome. Apart from the metaphor of the bird, Dickinson also utilizes seafaring imagery to illustrate the harsh conditions that Hope is able to weather.

The words gale and storm appear in the second stanza as situations that try to abash deflate, humble, or humiliate Hope. But the little Bird is far stronger than it appears. It will continue its song amidst trouble and thunderstorms. Hope remains constant even when the prospects are dim. It is capable of providing each of us with warmth, comfort, and much-needed reassurance. It tells us that the narrator knows about the nature of Hope firsthand, because she has heard it in the chillest land — and on the strangest Sea.

She tells us that in spite of everything Hope has given her, it has — never — in Extremity… asked a crumb — of me. These last two lines tell us that the persona may need and receive Hope, but that the feeling has never wanted or needed anything from her—not a morsel of acknowledgment or even a crumb of encouragement. With the elements so outside of your control, the only thing keeping you sane is the irrational but unsinkable hope you have for safe passage and survival.

The dire situation, the unending storm, and the bird that carried in its wings the hope of an entire people—these are all elements of the biblical account.

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