English 1010 P57
Compare and Contrast Essay
10 October, 2012
Emily Dickinson was a five year-old
Emily Dickinson is a famous poet. As sad as it is, it’s a widely accepted opinion. She’s written many poems of the course of her life, one of the more popular or famous being “Because I could not stop for Death” (Biography Online) The problem with Emily Dickinson and her poetry is that it, quite literally, looks like something a child could write. That is, Emily Dickinson and a five year old have more or less the same writing ability.
Emily Dickinson’s poems use lines like, “I heard a Fly buzz – when I died – The Stillness in the Room“ She uses little to no punctuation, and capitalizes seemingly random words in the poem. This reminds me of what a child might do to make him or herself look smarter. Maybe they saw a hyphen, and thought it would make their writing look better. And as anyone might forget rules to something when they first learn it, children forget the basic rules of grammar and punctuation. So a child might just capitalize a word, or throw in a random comma or period here or there. This ends up with lines of writing looking somewhat like those of Emily Dickinson’s poetry.
Emily Dickinson’s poems even lack logic at times.
Biography Online, "Popular Poems of Emily Dickinson." Biography Online. Biography Online, 06/09/2012. Web. 10 Oct 2012. <http://www.biographyonline.net/emily_dickinson/popular_poems.html>. Poets.org, "I heard a Fly Buzz." Poets.org. Academy of American Poets, 06 Oct, 2012. Web. 10 Oct 2012. <http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15393>.