emily dickinson 288 analysis

Dickinson, “I’m Nobody! Who Are You?” (#288)

Read By: Yina Liang

I’m Nobody! Who are you? Are you—Nobody—Too? Then there’s a pair of us! Don’t tell! they’d advertise—you know!

How dreary—to be—Somebody! How public—like a Frog— To tell one’s name—the livelong June— To an admiring Bog!

• Emily Dickinson
• 19th Century
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• I’m Nobody! Who are you?
• Emily Dickinson

I’m Nobody! Who are you? Are you — Nobody — Too? Then there’s a pair of us! Don’t tell! they’d advertise — you know!

How dreary — to be — Somebody! How public — like a Frog — To tell one’s name — the livelong June — To an admiring Bog!

Analysis, meaning and summary of Emily Dickinson's poem I’m Nobody! Who are you?

113 comments.

I think Emily is right in that everyone is inclined to call Dickinson just Emily, because she is a woman. I find it curious then that you present yourself as jus t Emily 😉 In my comment on her poem Blossoms will run away, I address her as Miss Dickinson …

our english teacher told us about that poem..and its so cool!

ivah is my classmate she’s right our tchr. gave us this assignment about the poem of emily dickinson

Popular people are shallow; the nobodies can experience real friendship.

THE BEST POEM EVER

I’ve loved this poem since first read some 40 years ago. It has never been truer than now. Absolutely prophetic.

Dickinson unlike Wordsworth researches her true self .The background without and the within her had an incessant battle till her demise .She was spiritually throbbed ,even having no religious cult .Hers was a life of seclusion ,austerity ,ordeal ,and non attachment . In “I’m Nobody ,Who are you” ,the poetess signals a few words as ,- Bog ,Frog ,June and advertise .In those four words she reveals her mystic -feelings and warns the blunt headed worldly- religious-people who like a toad jump here and there knowing never not the truth .God needs no advertise .The apparent world itself is His canvas .To a seer He gets mirrored as “the livelong June” ,calm ,fresh ,and beauteous .Living in marshland , the frog-like fanatics announce the merits and demerits of their profit-reasoned religion. Emily’s realisation is certainly an aspirant’s feeling .In fact we are none to display , advise , and command Every one of us is in his/her own platform . Subrata Ray .Mousumipara.Uluberia .West Bengal .India

For those who were concened about the “word changes” in the version of “I’m nobody” that was posted: “Advertise” and “June” are actually Dickinson’s words from the original manuscripts. She may have suggested “Banish us” and “bog” as alternates, but in the latest edition of her complete works, the editor Ralph Franklin has opted for “Advertise” and “June” as her preferred choices. Remember, she never had a chance to do the editng of her work. The original published poems were edited by others.

Who is the miserable jerk-off who changed Emily’s words? These are not the original words. Emily said nothing about “advertising.” She did say “They’d banish us, you know.” Thus the poem is about isolation, not being made publically exposed. For Emily, banishing was good. She liked that. Because, as the poem says, she wasn’t a part of all the stupidity all around her. Sounds lika a good sentiment for today!

i really was inspired by this poem especially this one. wht can i say to the whole world :

“BE UR SELF YO GUYS”

just fight for ur own rights dnt do wht society thinks is right ,they just think being like evr1 is da right thing to do ,oh no thy r wrg at tht point.

im no body means that she is against fame she isolates herself from this society cares only 4 outer appearance and showing off so some body is the opposite of no body as somebody is this showy peson she appreciated hard work so u can evaluate one by his work and his innerself also speaking about her personal side she defends herself as she was attacked in her writtings so the title shows her confidence its her own experience in life the poem is very deep has a moral lesson

this is a very funny poem it epitomizes the poet’s humor; it reveals Dickinson’s tendency towards concealment and evasion, it also consolidates her preference for disguise as she eschews public scrutiny and flees social exhibition. She is a private poet and she conveys this through this poem

So I really found this poem interesting. I agree that I feel this poem is saying “Yea! I’m a nobody! Who cares?” I also found the frog part interesting, but what I don’t understant is “the livelong June” is there a reference I am missing?

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I’m Nobody! Who are you? (288) by Emily Dickinson

Why I am no good at the stage, why I always feel like running away, and when I am ready to do so I try very hard to remember all my friends who choose to sit in the quiet with someone like me.

Once I sat at a round table full with famous elbows. I felt so very little, so very unnecessary. And so glad—because I can stand up and walk away, and I did.

I’m Nobody! Who are you? (288) Emily Dickinson I’m Nobody! Who are you? Are you — Nobody — Too? Then there’s a pair of us! Don’t tell! they’d advertise — you know! How dreary — to be — Somebody! How public — like a Frog — To tell one’s name — the livelong June — To an admiring Bog!

This is from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by Thomas H. Johnson, published by Little, Brown & Company, 1960.

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It speaks of faceless ness, anonymity, non- conformity and how rapidly those thing can be usurped

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288 (I’m Nobody) | Emily Dickinson

288 Emily Dickinson

I’m Nobody! Who are you? Are you—Nobody—Too? Then there’s a pair of us! Don’t tell! they’d advertise—you know!

How dreary—to be—Somebody! How public—like a Frog— To tell one’s name—the livelong June— To an admiring Bog!

A pair of them?

I’m intrigued that there are two substantially different versions of this poem that continue to appear quite frequently in anthologies and online. The “advertise” version, usually numbered 288, was once obscure, but now seems to have driven the other version out of Dickinson’s collected works on the Internet. Before the post-1960’s flood of Dickinson scholarship, the following version (with not-so-Dickinsonian punctuation) was much better known. It is the version, I believe, that was in my elementary-school poetry anthology:

I’m nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody, too? Then there’s a pair of us–don’t tell! They’d banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody! How public, like a frog To tell your name the livelong day To an admiring bog!

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A Short Analysis of Emily Dickinson’s ‘There’s a certain Slant of light’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

There’s a certain Slant of light, Winter Afternoons – That oppresses, like the Heft Of Cathedral Tunes –

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us – We can find no scar, But internal difference – Where the Meanings, are –

None may teach it – Any – ’Tis the seal Despair – An imperial affliction Sent us of the Air –

When it comes, the Landscape listens – Shadows – hold their breath – When it goes, ’tis like the Distance On the look of Death –

‘There’s a certain Slant of light’: summary

Many of Emily Dickinson’s greatest poems do that thing which much great art does: it takes something rather specific and peculiar, but shows how pervasive and universal such an experience, or a feeling, is. ‘There’s a certain Slant of light’ is an especially fine example of this.

The poem, in summary, focuses on the way that sunlight in the winter is oppressive and weighs down on us, making us feel low, unhappy, as if visited by a ‘Heavenly Hurt’. (That particular phrase, ‘Heavenly Hurt’ is a wonderfully plangent elongation of the simple word ‘Heft’ in the previous stanza, like a shaft of light stretching out across the room.)

And indeed, this hurt is ‘Heavenly’ not just because it comes from the heavens, but because it seems to carry the weight of Christianity with it, like ‘Cathedral Tunes’. It leaves no physical scar – nor any emotional one perhaps, since when spring comes around we are cured of our pain – but we are rendered different inside, in a profound and noticeable way.

Nobody can tell us what it means, but it bears the seal of despair. It’s an ‘imperial affliction’ that is airborne, like malaria. It seems to affect the very landscape, since the world becomes darker when it arrives – as we get deeper into winter.

The final two lines are harder to analyse, but given the starting point – that ‘certain Slant of light’ – presumably ‘it’ refers to the light fading from the land and giving way to darkness, which leaves us with our melancholy thoughts concerning death, that constant theme of Emily Dickinson’s poetry.

That final rhyme of breath/Death sees death overtaking the breath of life, leaving us cold and without solace. The religious flavour to the earlier portion of the poem offers some, of course: belief in an afterlife, in the Heaven that sent down this ‘Hurt’, can provide comfort that death will not prove to be the end. But Heaven is absent from the end of the poem. Cold comfort, and not one that Dickinson feels prepared to embrace in this poem. That ‘certain Slant of light’ will not lead us to the Kindly Light.

‘There’s a certain Slant of light’: analysis

So Despair is not merely psychological in this poem: for Dickinson, more is at stake.

Despair  encircles and contains  Air here: they are more than rhymes, since ‘Despair’ seeks to smother the very ‘Air’ we breathe, like a poisonous gas infecting the air. Such a pair paves the way for that final rhyme of  breath  and  Death :

Vendler, in her compelling analysis of this poem (as of so much else), also points out what a disparate array of abstract and concrete things Dickinson brings together in this poem about hurt, oppression, despair, religion, scars, afflictions, shadows, landscapes, and so on.

But light is the starting-point, and that  slant  of light. And it may be that by considering  slants  in the poetry of Dickinson more widely, we can analyse and pinpoint what she is trying to drive home in this elusive and enigmatic poem.

In another of her poems, ‘ Tell all the Truth but tell it slant ’, Dickinson considered the advantages of ‘slanting’ the truth to make it more digestible and palatable for us weak humans, who cannot bear too much direct truth:

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant – Success in Circuit lies Too bright for our infirm Delight The Truth’s superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased With explanation kind The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind –

Is Dickinson’s ‘Slant of light’ a slant of truth here?

In that other poem, Dickinson had likened bald, unalloyed truth to lightning; if it strikes us directly, it destroys us. Here, though, even a certain slant of light can oppress us, if not strike us down. Is this slant of light like a bolt of lightning, only softer and more subtle, creeping in on a winter afternoon as the sun sets and we are reminded of the brevity of our own lives (and, by contrast, the eternity of the afterlife)?

About Emily Dickinson

Perhaps no other poet has attained such a high reputation after their death that was unknown to them during their lifetime. Born in 1830, 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.

Dickinson collected around eight hundred of her poems into little manuscript books which she lovingly put together without telling anyone. Her poetry is instantly recognisable for her idiosyncratic use of dashes in place of other forms of punctuation. She frequently uses the four-line stanza (or quatrain), and, unusually for a nineteenth-century poet, utilises pararhyme or half-rhyme as often as full rhyme. The epitaph on Emily Dickinson’s gravestone, composed by the poet herself, features just two words: ‘called back’.

1 thought on “A Short Analysis of Emily Dickinson’s ‘There’s a certain Slant of light’”

Beautiful poem and great commentary afterwards. It makes me appreciate the poem even more! I am a new blogger and made my first book review post recently. I would love for you to check it out and give me your thoughts, thanks!

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Success is counted sweetest Summary & Analysis by Emily Dickinson

• Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis
• Poetic Devices
• Vocabulary & References
• Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme
• Line-by-Line Explanations

"Success is Counted Sweetest" is an early poem written by the American poet Emily Dickinson in 1859. It makes the bold claim that success is best understood by those who fail, and illustrates this claim by contrasting a victorious army with a fallen soldier from the other side. The poem has the rare honor of publication during Dickinson's lifetime (in 1864), though it was published anonymously; of her approximately 1,800 poems, only a few were published during her life.

• Read the full text of “Success is counted sweetest”

The Full Text of “Success is counted sweetest”

1 Success is counted sweetest

2 By those who ne'er succeed.

3 To comprehend a nectar

4 Requires sorest need.

5 Not one of all the purple Host

6 Who took the Flag today

7 Can tell the definition

8 So clear of victory

9 As he defeated – dying –

10 On whose forbidden ear

11 The distant strains of triumph

12 Burst agonized and clear!

“Success is counted sweetest” Summary

“success is counted sweetest” themes.

Success, Lack, and Desire

• See where this theme is active in the poem.

Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Success is counted sweetest”

Success is counted sweetest By those who ne'er succeed.

To comprehend a nectar Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple Host Who took the Flag today Can tell the definition So clear of victory

As he defeated – dying – On whose forbidden ear

Lines 11-12

The distant strains of triumph Burst agonized and clear!

“Success is counted sweetest” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

Alliteration.

• See where this poetic device appears in the poem.

“Success is counted sweetest” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Purple Host
• See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.

Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Success is counted sweetest”

Rhyme scheme, “success is counted sweetest” speaker, “success is counted sweetest” setting, literary and historical context of “success is counted sweetest”, more “success is counted sweetest” resources, external resources.

On Playing Emily — A clip in which actor Cynthia Nixon discusses playing Emily Dickinson in the film A Quiet Passion.  

Student Resources — Resources for students about Dickinson provided by the Emily Dickinson museum (which is situated in her old house). 

Understanding Dickinson's Use of Meter — A valuable discussion of Dickinson's use of meter in her poetry. 

Dickinson: the Podcast — Experts talk about Emily Dickinson's life and work on the BBC's In Our Time podcast/radio show. 

The Original Poem — Take a look at the poem in Dickinson's handwriting.

LitCharts on Other Poems by Emily Dickinson

A Bird, came down the Walk

After great pain, a formal feeling comes –

A Light exists in Spring

A Murmur in the Trees—to note—

A narrow Fellow in the Grass

An awful Tempest mashed the air—

As imperceptibly as grief

A still—Volcano—Life—

Because I could not stop for Death —

Before I got my eye put out

Fame is a fickle food

Hope is the thing with feathers

I cannot live with You –

I cautious, scanned my little life

I could bring You Jewels—had I a mind to—

I did not reach Thee

I died for Beauty—but was scarce

I dreaded that first Robin, so

I dwell in Possibility –

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain

If I can stop one heart from breaking

I had been hungry, all the Years

I have a Bird in spring

I heard a Fly buzz - when I died -

I like a look of Agony

I like to see it lap the Miles

I measure every Grief I meet

I’m Nobody! Who are you?

I started Early — Took my Dog —

I taste a liquor never brewed

It was not Death, for I stood up

I—Years—had been—from Home—

Like Rain it sounded till it curved

Much Madness is divinest Sense -

My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun

Nature is what we see

One need not be a Chamber — to be Haunted

Publication — is the Auction

Safe in their Alabaster Chambers

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —

The Brain—is wider than the Sky—

The Bustle in a House

The Mushroom is the Elf of Plants

There came a Wind like a Bugle

There is no Frigate like a Book

There's a certain Slant of light

There's been a Death, in the Opposite House

The saddest noise, the sweetest noise

The Sky is low — the Clouds are mean

The Soul has bandaged moments

The Soul selects her own Society

The Wind – tapped like a tired Man –

They shut me up in Prose –

This is my letter to the world

This World is not Conclusion

'Twas the old—road—through pain—

We grow accustomed to the Dark

What mystery pervades a well!

Whose cheek is this?

Wild nights - Wild nights!

Everything you need for every book you read.

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Poem of the week: The saddest noise, the sweetest noise by Emily Dickinson

This evocation of springtime quickly takes on a darker tone and stands among the author’s unforgettable works

The saddest noise, the sweetest noise (No 1789)

The saddest noise, the sweetest noise, The maddest noise that grows, — The birds, they make it in the spring, At night’s delicious close,

Between the March and April line — That magical frontier Beyond which summer hesitates, Almost too heavenly near.

It makes us think of all the dead That sauntered with us here, By separation’s sorcery Made cruelly more dear.

It makes us think of what we had, And what we now deplore. We almost wish those siren throats Would go and sing no more.

An ear can break a human heart As quickly as a spear. We wish the ear had not a heart So dangerously near.

This undated poem, numbered 1789 in The Poems of Emily Dickinson , seems to inhabit a modest and even populist lexicon at times. Dickinson is known for paradoxical analogies, often opening her poem with a terse declaration of the unexpected: “My life had stood — a loaded gun —”, “Hope is the thing with feathers …” and many others. The two superlatives of the first line, “The saddest noise, the sweetest noise”, are less than arresting. Elsewhere, some adjectives and adverbs seem too metrically driven; “cruelly” in the third verse’s last line may be one of them. But the association of spring and death is slowly firmed and filled out as the slow-paced, regularly constructed verses accumulate. An extraordinary figurative strike in the fifth, with a spear rather than a gun, earns the poem a place among the unforgettable.

It’s a mark of Dickinson’s fidelity to experience that she describes the collective sound of the birds as “noise”, not “song”, and the third of the trio of superlatives, “maddest”, points in a direction neither “saddest” and “sweetest” initially can encompass. That “madness” will become tangible in verse three. Meanwhile, the second verse foregrounds seasonal delight, though hinting that the “magical frontier” between spring and summer might resemble the fine line between life and death: “Between the March and April line — / That magical frontier/ Beyond which summer hesitates, / Almost too heavenly near.”

The verb “sauntered” in the third verse suggests a relaxed pace, as if the companions had felt no fear of time’s passing. Now the noise of the birds “makes us think of all the dead” – as if the birds had become a confusing, ghostly chorus of voices and memories of voices. Even the narratorial voice, always using the first-person plural pronoun, might include the dead. Something unheavenly enters the verse in the third line, the bad magic of a sorcerer who takes away cherished companions to make us cherish them all the more. The birds’ “siren throats” are a threat, because of the awareness of loss they provoke. The poem puts it with appealing bluntness: “We almost wish those siren throats / would go and sing no more.”

Dickinson has made room for sweetness, sadness and madness, but her concluding verse is honed to a figure of startling violence. “An ear can break a human heart …” Instead of bird noise, it’s the human ear which delivers pain, like the “spear” with which it rhymes. A well-aimed spear can literally stop a heart, and so that cliche of metaphorical “heartbreak” is redeemed. With “a heart / so dangerously near,” the ear almost acquires a creaturely existence of its own, especially when the two “hearts” are end words in lines one and three, as if human and ear were indeed separate beings. An adverb powered by understatement, “dangerously” seems fully earned. This perfect verse, in a direct and disturbingly “organic” way, connects sound with emotion, and is almost a poem in itself:

• Carol Rumens's poem of the week
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