Symbolic Images The Poetry of Emily Dickinson Essay

The poetry of the Imagists is short, simple, and quite literal in its meaning in order to create a vivid picture in the reader’s mind. When they describe an object, it means just what they say. A tree is a tree, a flower is a flower, and a bird is a bird. Imagists have little use for abstract words or ideas, and tend to shy away from them as much as possible. Emily Dickinson doesn’t fall under the same category as the Imagists, as she doesn’t use the same techniques as the Imagists. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Dickinson’s poems center on very vivid images, with very different takes on them. They very often contain abstract concepts, which are often given concrete principles and are incorporated as part of her images. She implants deeper†¦show more content†¦The lines â€Å"For I have but the power to kill/Without - the power to die –â€Å" sum up Dickinson’s feelings of the power of women. She obviously feels that women do have tremendous power, but in the heavily male-oriented society of her time, that power lay dormant without a man to use it. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Another poem heavily laden with symbolic images is â€Å"The Lightning is a Yellow Fork.† This poem uses symbolism in a different way than the first. Rather than using symbol to show her view of the roles of women, she uses it to pose a question to the reader without explicitly asking one. This poem closely resembles the poems of the Imagists, as she makes a short description of a lighting strike. However, the description becomes only half the poem, as she goes deep into metaphor and abstract ideas. In the first stanza, she uses metaphor to compare the fork dropped from a table. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;The Lightning is a yellow Fork nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;From Tables in the sky nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;By inadvertent fingers dropt nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;The awful Cutlery This stanza shows how lightning seems to be an accident, dropped on Earth objectively wherever it may land. The following stanza seems to ask the question of where the fork was dropped from. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Of mansions never quite disclosedShow MoreRelatedEmily Dickinsons Capitalization and Punctuation1251 Words   |  6 PagesThe poetry of Emily Dickinson is one of the most recognizable of the 19th century. Dickinson’s poetry stands out because of its unconventional use of capitalization and punctuation. Her poems contain capitalized words which are not normally capitalized. Her poems are noted for the frequent use of the dash. 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