Discussion Questions for
Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson did not title her poems. The titles I've given are the first lines of the poems which should help you to find them if you are not using the same edition I am.
pp. 1-35
"A dew sufficed itself"(1)
What is a "vast destiny"?
Why does the dew feel that life is "trivial"?
Why in "passing" is the dew "eternally unknown"?
"A door just opened on the street"(1)
Why has the poet lost "doubly"?
What is "Enlightening misery"?
"A light exists in spring"(2)
What does the last line of stanza 1 and the 2nd stanza mean?
"A little road not made of man"(3)
Why does the poet want to go on a road "not made of man"?
"A long, long sleep, a famous sleep"(3)
What is a "famous sleep"?
Why does the poet compare "idleness" to death?
Which is better? Why?
"A poor torn heart, a tattered heart"(4-5)
What is this poem about?
"A sickness of this world it most occasions"(50
Who are "best men"?
Why is the world sick when they die?
What does the 2nd stanza mean?
"A something in a summer's day"(5-6)
What is a "wordless tune/Transcending ecstasy"?
What does it mean to transcend ecstasy?
What is "too inspecting face"?
Why does heaven come to those who "thought their worshipping/A too presumptuous psalm"?
"A spider sewed at night"(7)
What do the last three lines of the poem mean?
"A thought went up my mind to-day"(7)
What is this poem about?
Have you ever had this experience?
If so, does this poem describe it well? Why or why not?
"A word is dead"(8)
Explain this poem.
"Afraid? Of whom am I afraid?"(9)
Why is the poet not afraid of death, life and resurrection?
"An altered look about the hills"(10)
What is "Nicodemus' mystery?"(see John 3:1-21)
What is its "annual reply"?
"Before you thought of spring"(11)
Who or what is this poem about?
What do the last two lines mean?
"Dare you see a soul at the white heat?"(12)
What is "a soul at the white heat?"
What is the "finer forge/that soundless tugs within"?
What do the last two lines mean?
"Death is a dialogue between"(13)
What does this poem mean?
What is the argument that death and spirit have?
"Drowning is not so pitiful"(13)
What do the first two lines mean?
Why is death such a fearful thing to the narrator?
"Each life converges to some centre"(14)
What is the "centre/expressed or still"?
What goal exists in every human nature?
Is it the same goal or specific to individuals?
Why is it "Adored with caution"?
What do the last four lines mean?
"Experiment to me"(14)
What meat is the poet talking about?
Why is this "requisite"?
"Fame is a fickle food"(15)
What does this poem say about fame?
"Fate slew him, but he did not drop"(15)
What is "Fate"?
How does it slay people?
How does one neutralize fate?
Why was the man unmoved by all that Fate did to him?
Why did "Fate" finally acknowledge "him a man"?
What does that last line mean?
"Going to heaven!"(17)
What are the different emotions the narrator feels about heaven?
Why does the narrator believe in the first stanza and not the third?
"Great streets of silence led away"(18)
Explain this poem.
What kind of place is this?
What does "For period exhaled" mean?
"Have you got a brook in your little heart"(19)
What is this "brook"?
Why does it go dry?
"He ate and drank the precious Words—"(19)
How can books change the way we view ourselves and the world?
What is a "loosened spirit"?
"Hope is a subtle glutton"(20)
What does this poem say about hope?
What do the last two lines mean?
"How happy is the little stone"(21)
What does this stone represent?
Why does the stone not fear "exigencies"?
What do the last two lines mean?
"I cannot live with you"(22)
What is behind the shelf?
How come the lover cannot live, die or rise with the beloved?
What does the third stanza mean?
What does the fourth stanza mean?
If to be separated from the beloved is hell, why does the narrator say "we must keep apart"?
"I gave myself to him"(25)
Why does the "Daily own of love/Depreciate the vision"?
What's the "mutual risk,—"?
"I had no cause to be awake"(27)
What does this poem say about sleep?
Is this poem about sleep or something else? Explain.
"I like a look of Agony"(28)
Why does the narrator "like a look of agony"?
Why is such a look "true"?
"I lost a world the other day"(29)
What does it mean to lose a world?
"I took my power in my hand"(33)
What is this "power"?
Is this poem about failure? Why or why not?
pp. 36-70.
"I've ceded, I've stopped being theirs"(36)
What does the first line mean?
What does the last stanza mean?
"I'm nobody! Who are you?"(37)
Why does the poet call herself "nobody"?
Are you nobody too?
Why does the poet say it's "dreary to be somebody"?
Is bliss, then, such abyss"(37)
What does this poem say about "bliss"?
What does the last stanza mean?
"It dropped so low—in my regard—"(38)
What does this poem say about fate?
How does it compare to the poem about fate on pg. 15?
"It tossed and tossed"(39)
What happens to the brig?
Why does the ocean not break for the brig?
"My life closed twice before its close"(42)
What does the first line mean?
What is the "third event"? What are the first two?
What do the last two lines mean?
"No rack can torture me"(44)
How can a "soul at Liberty" not be tortured by a rack?
What is the "bolder one" behind "mortal bone"?
What do the last two lines mean?
"Not seeing, still we know"(45)
What does the first line mean?
What do the last two lines mean?
"One blessing had I, than the rest"(45)
What does the last stanza mean?
"Our journey had advanced"(47)
What is the "odd fork in Being's road"?
Why are the feet reluctant?
What does the last stanza mean?
"Softened by Times's consummate plush"(49)
What is this poem about?
Why are children's problems easy to repair?
What threatens "childhood's citadel"?
What is "childhood's citadel"?
"Superiority to fate"(50)
What does this poem say about fate?
Why must superiority to fate be earned?(We conquer fate the old-fashioned way—we earrrrrrn it.)
"The brain is wider than the sky"(51)
What does the first line mean?
What does the last stanza mean?
"The distance that the dead have gone"(53)
What is this poem about?
"The last night that she lived"(55)
What is a "common night"?
Why does dying make "nature different"?
Why does the poet call death a "great light"?
What do the last two lines mean?
"The saddest noise, the sweetest noise"(57)
What is "separation's sorcery"?
Why does death make "us think of what we had"?
"The Spirit lasts—but in what mode—"(58)
What do the lines "The Spirit lurks within the Flesh/Like Tides within the Sea/That make the Water live, estranged/What would the Either be?" mean?
"The way I read a letter's this"(60)
Why is this solitude necessary to read a letter?
"The wind tapped like a tired man"(60)
Why is the wind a "tired man"?
Why is the wind a "timid man"?
What kind of guest is the wind?
"Their height in heaven comforts not"(61)
What is the "house of supposition"?
This house "skirts the acres of perhaps." What does that mean?
Why does this make the poet insecure?
What do the last two lines of poem mean?
"There is a word"(63)
What is the word that pierces an armed man?
What does "The saved will tell/On patriotic day" mean?
What does "Some epauletted brother/Gave his breath away" mean?
What do the the last two lines mean?
"There's a certain slant of light"(63)
What does "oppresses, like the weight/Of cathedral tunes" mean?
What is a "Heavenly hurt"?
Why does the poet call "despair" "An imperial affliction"?
What do the last two lines mean?
"This world is not conclusion"(66)
What does the first line mean?
What is the "sequel" that "stands beyond"?
What does "And through a riddle, at the last,/Sagacity must go" mean?
What do the last four lines mean?
"To hear an Oriole sing"(68)
What do the last three lines mean?
"To lose thee—sweeter than to gain"(69)
What does the first stanza mean?
General Questions
Do you like Emily Dickinson's poetry? Why or why not?
What common themes did you notice in her poems?
What were your favorite poems and why?
What is Dickinson's view of death?
What is Dickinson's view of heaven?
What is Dickinson's view of God?
What is Dickinson's view of nature?
Did you see any similarities between Dickinson and Wordsworth? Explain.
©2005-2012 Glen Draeger (all rights reserved)
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