Emily Dickinson Literary Language

Poetry is known for its careful literary language people used for its esthetic qualities, other than its semantic content. Emily Dickinson was a keen observer who mostly wrote anything that intrigued her and what she knew. In most of her poems, she employs metaphors instead of speaking in a literal sense. Although she was unrecognized in her time, she was posthumously known for her unique use of syntax and form. Many emotions were expressed in her poems. Intoxication, heartbreak, and motivation were spoken in her three poems, related to some situations, that captured the eye. Emily Elizabeth Dickinson began writing as a teenager. She had many early influences in her life such as a family friend Benjamin Franklin Newton whom she wrote about
“She uses the metaphor of drunkenness or intoxication to express how the beauty of nature elates her” (1). The metaphor is easy to identify. She uses a drinking metaphor on the first line. “Pearl, a precious gem, indicates the value of liquor made under the best of circumstances; her liquor (the beauty of nature) is even more precious” (1). In the second stanza, humorously, she tells us “she is drunk with summer's splendor; the sky is intensely blue or "molten"(1). In stanza’s three and four suggests that nature will forever intoxicate her. “She will "drink" nature until foxgloves stop blooming and when butterflies give up gathering nectar from flowers. She equates nectar, and its positive associations, with "drams" and then? she will "drink" or revel in nature even more” (1). At the end, the poem ends with an image of the sun beginning to set while she leaning on it like a drunk leaning against a lamppost. This lighthearted and amusing poem can represent two ways; she can represent herself as a drunk rebel sublimated against society's restrictiveness or perhaps a naughty little girl
But a heart break is no fun at all; especially if one person didn’t show the same affection as the other did. In “Heart, We Will Forget Him”, Emily Dickinson tells her heart to forget her love. This short poem is written in two stanzas and only four lines in each. She instructs her heart to “forget the warmth he gave” and she “will forget the light” (1). Once she gets over the one she loved, she will feel better and her "thoughts may dim". Although it may take time, “I may remember him!” A heartbreak does take time to heal but there are things a person can’t forget no matter how long it takes or what they do to forget their love. Emily Dickinson knew her unusual act of love was not going to be asked