I Never Saw A Moor

I never saw, but I know…
“I never saw a Moor-”A moor, an unseen object to man, but one the poet Emily Dickinson chooses to title her poem. What is this unseen object called a moor? Webster’s Dictionary describes a moor as “A tract of open, peaty, wasteland, often overgrown with heath, common in high latitudes and altitudes where drainage is poor; heath.” There are many terms that Dickinson uses within this poem that maybe unknown and uncertain to some, but they hold a deeper meaning within the poem as a whole. Emily Dickinson’s poem “I never saw a Moor-” is a poem which shows the symbolic uncertainties behind things which we have not seen, and may not know, from its usage of analogies from several key terms within it. The overall idea taken …show more content…
There are several key words that one might not know in the poem and those are: moor, heather, and billow. It was earlier mentioned that a moor is a tract of open, peaty, wasteland, often overgrown with heath. The first line in the first stanza states: “I never saw a Moor” from that point the poem moves to the second unknown object a heather, which can be found in the first stanza line three. What is a heather? Webster’s dictionary describes a heather as a “purple-flowered Eurasian heath that grows abundantly on moorland and heathland. Many ornamental varieties have been developed”. The last unknown term that is used is a billow which is used in stanza one line four. Webster’s dictionary describes a billow “a large undulating mass of something, typically cloud, smoke, or steam.” The significance that these three terms hold within the poem are that these thing if they are seen, are uncommonly known because of the word choice used in the poem. For a common person or reader those three items listed aren’t used in ones everyday vocabulary, and aren’t seen on a daily basis, and that leads to the overall meaning of the message. When things such as terms like a moor, heather, or billow are used they represent the idea that even though they may be unseen or unheard of doesn’t mean that the …show more content…
Even though we have not seen heaven and God we know that they exist. The details that support that support this idea that even though things maybe unseen, they still exist such as heaven and God exist even if one may not be able to see them are as followed: the method in which the poem is written, the terminology, and the imagery within the poem. The method in which the poem is written, greatly contributes to the overall meaning and structure throughout the poem by the rhythm scheme, tone and flow. Those such attributes lead to telling readers that no matter how small or big the unseen, may be they still cease to exit. The second supporting detail, is terminology. This detail uses terms like a moor, heather, or billow are used they represent the idea that even though they may be unseen or unheard of doesn’t mean that the don’t exist at all such as God and heaven aren’t see but still exist. Finally the last supporting detail is imagery. The overall purpose or idea behind imager is that without the knowledge, experience, or understanding of certain things that imager brings, readers are to believe that God and heaven are equivalent if not greater then everything else compared in the poems such as the moors and waves. Therefore, The following three ideas are how the overall idea that