Emily Dickinson Museum

“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou is one of the poems that I will never forget, it is one of my favorite poems. It is a poem that really makes you ask yourself questions. Questions like, why would she write something like this? She mainly wrote it because of her background. From the time her parents divorced till the time she was raped. She felt like she was nothing and useless. A lot of people feel like this sometimes and they could relate to this poem. This poem is strong and…

For many people it is important to leave a legacy or something they can be remembered for when they die. People leave their mark in this world because that is the only way to prove they existed. In Ozymandias, a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley, a traveler describes the ruins of what was once a great monument of Ozymandias, and now is a “colossal wreck” (13). Nothing lasts forever, everything comes to an end, and you are either remembered or forgotten. Ozymandias was the Greek name for Ramesses II…

Media Review Three In his article, Jason Diamond shares one of Flannery O’Connor’s prayers, which she wrote during her stay at the University of Iowa anywhere between 1946-1947 when she experiences doubt in her writing capabilities (Diamond 3). In these prayers, Diamond says that O’Connor “wrote her thoughts and prayers, displaying the same kind of self-doubt we see in so many writers today, but balanced with an unwavering faith…” (Diamond 3). Although Diamond agrees that O’Connor’s works seem…

Emily Dickinson Archive or EDA is an open access website for the manuscripts of Emily Dickinson. The purpose of this website is to serve as the central place for Dickinson’s manuscripts, poems, and letters. The long term goal of this website is to be the premiere archive host for access to serving Dickinson manuscripts, letters, and modern and historical editors of poems and letters. The funding for this archive has been provided by the Harvard Library, The Sidney Verba Fund, The Houghton…

Literary Analysis Death is inevitable. Some people fear it, others hope it comes soon. As for the author Sylvia Plath and the character Huckleberry Finn, their stances differ. The story The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, portrays the main character, Huck, as terrified of death. While Sylvia Plath’s poem “I am Vertical” shows Sylvia as a person who is very intrigued by death. Sylvia Plath comes off as someone who would rather be dead than alive because she thinks it may be more…

The opening lines to Dylan Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” are a wonderful beginning to what, on the surface, seems to be a poem about the transition from day to night. But upon closer reading, the poem is much more complex piece on death. Dylan Thomas uses light and dark imagery, diction, and anaphora to demonstrate the author’s thoughts on death and the questions he raises on its inevitability. Such questions are a product of Thomas’s own life in which his father is dying and…

In “The Raven” the author Edgar Allen Poe wrote about his dead wife that he can’t stop thinking about. “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” symbolizes how the African Americans were treated and how they felt during segregation, “The Raven” is about Edgar’s dead wife Lenore. Both of the texts are similar because they both include things that don’t go away. The theme to “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” there is always something good, don’t let your anger hold you back. In the story, the free bird…

The 1900’s are known for world wars, psychedelic drugs, classic rock and believe it or not, poetry. Poetry may come as a surprise to most, however, Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” and Dylan Thomas’ “Do not Go Gentle into that Good Night” are influential in how they depict the impact of choice and the impact of death on human life. Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” is about decision making when faced with a “fork in the road” situation and how taking one choice will result in never knowing where…

Mortality is a topic frequently addressed in poetry. In Edmund Spenser’s “Amoretti LXXV: One Day I Wrote her Name” and Dylan Thomas’s “In My Craft or Sullen Art”, both poets write about mortality, however take much different views. Dylan Thomas warns against the fleeting nature of human life and urges people to embrace life without fear, whereas Thomas seems quite nonchalant about the idea of death and seems to believe that he can be immortalized through his poetry. Thomas uses the imagery of…

In both ‘Because I Could Not Stop For Death’ and ‘Mid term Break’, Dickinson and Hearney present to us the themes of death and relationships. In this essay, I will explore these themes through looking at the word choice, literary devices and the tone of each of the poems. First of all, in ‘Because I could not stop for death’, Dickinson personifies “Death” as a welcoming and kind person who is taking her on this ‘journey’ from life to afterlife. In the first stanza, the word “kindly” is used to…