18 pages • 36 minutes read
Emily DickinsonThere is no Frigate like a Book
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1866A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Authorial Context: Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson is almost as famous for her reclusive lifestyle as for her poetry. Though the extent of Dickinson’s reclusion is a matter of scholarly debate (see: Further Reading & Resources), many of her poems focus on domestic life. Part of Dickinson’s focus on the domestic sphere is likely the result of her taking care of her ailing mother. Dickinson’s father was largely unsuccessful in his many pursuits but was respected for his strong values. He was overprotective of his wife and children, and after his death, the family struggled financially due to being sheltered at home.
“There is no Frigate like a Book” engages with these struggles; books allow the poem’s speaker to be entertained and travel without leaving the protection of the home. The speaker also highlights how “frugal” (Line 7) imagined travel is compared to physical travel. The speaker’s use of the word “poor” (Line 5) might also refer to poor physical health, which is a common side-effect of isolation. The fact that one does not have to undertake a physical “[t]oll” (Line 6) to travel via poetry means that it is accessible to anyone fortunate enough to be literate.
Literary Context: American Transcendentalism
Dickinson’s poetic voice is among the most unique in American literature. While Dickinson’s forms draw heavily from Christian traditions (See: Literary Devices), they do not make up all of her influences. Dickinson wrote most of her poetry at the intersection of the American Transcendentalist movement and the Protestant religious revivals known as the Second and Third Great Awakening. Both of these movements leave significant traces on “There is no Frigate like a Book.”
The American Transcendentalist movement was inspired by the earlier European Romantics. The Romantics, particularly the English Romantics, lived in a time of limited mobility due to a series of conflicts in continental Europe, including the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815). The English Romantics, unable to travel, praised the imagination’s ability to both create and recall far-off lands. Many of these imaginary or remembered lands became subjects of famous poems, such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 1816 poem “Kubla Khan.”
Dickinson’s speaker believes that through close study of poems like Coleridge’s, the reader is able to “[t]raverse” these imagined landscapes. This belief in the power of literature is likely influenced by Dickinson’s engagement with Protestant ideas. One of the central tenets of Protestantism is that anyone should be able to engage with religious texts. This belief reflects the speaker’s idea that books are a “[c]hariot / That bears the Human Soul” (Line 8) and can transport anyone who seeks them out regardless of their circumstances.
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