Poetry Analysis

There are few poets in American literature as well known and influential as Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost . They not only defined an American poetic voice for the nineteenth and twentieth centuries , but their simple style and reverence for natural beauty often overshadowed the many complexities of human nature they managed to relay in their poetry In both Dickinson 's Hope is the thing with feathers ' and Frost 's My November Guest ' both rely on metaphors and poetic conventions to express deep the human emotions of hope and sorrow

The speaker in

Dickinson 's poem possesses a tone that contradicts many of the popular conceptions surrounding her work . She is often seen as a morose poet , fascinated by death and enraptured by the alienation she feels around her . However , in Hope is a thing with feathers ' she expresses the most optimistic of all human conceptions , hope , as a bird In three short stanzas , the poet 's simple of hope appears as a little bird that perseveres despite storm and chill . Like Dickinson , Frost employs the first person speaker to personify an abstract concept , in this case sorrow . To the speaker , sorrow is a woman that enjoys the desolate , rainy days of November . While not made explicitly known to the reader whether the speaker 's sorrow is merely a metaphor for his sadness or perhaps the sorrow caused by a woman that represents she ' in the poem , the idea that sorrow is the speaker 's intimate partner would make such a feminine portrayal necessary . In both poems , the speakers use a tone that seems positive , even when discussing negative things like the threats that make hope necessary or the dark , desolate days in the autumn . Rather than portray these situations with a downbeat tone , each speaker illustrates their pleasure over simply getting to experience them

The imagery of Dickinson 's poem relies on nature to express the speaker 's point that hope is like a little bird . The second and third stanzas offer the most explicit imagery of the poem , portraying hope , or the bird , in situations that threaten its life or would seem to make it suffer but only make it more significant : And sweetest in the gale is heard / And sore must be the storm / That could abash the little bird That kept so many warm (ln . 5 - ln . 8 ) Hope is strongest when powerful forces conspire to thwart it , though to no avail . In Frost 's poem , the imagery used describes what would normally be considered dismal and downtrodden , but in the poem is portrayed in a positive way The cold autumn rain of the first stanza is reinforced by the s of the third stanza : The desolate , deserted trees / The faded earth , the heavy sky / The beauties she so truly sees / She thinks I have no eye for these / And vexes me for reason why (ln . 11 - ln 15 . Images like desolation , desertion , and fading are not usually considered beautiful , but the speaker of the poem...