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.
Literary Devices
Form and Meter
Dickinson arranged “There is no Frigate like a Book” into eight lines of alternating iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter. This meter is often associated with Christian hymns, as many of them have been constructed to fit the same form. This shared meter allows the hymns to be interchangeable over a shared piece of music. Though Dickinson stopped attending church services in her early twenties, most of her poetry is written using hymn meter. The use of this meter in “There is no Frigate like a Book” points toward and reinforces religious interpretations of the text.
Unlike many of Dickinson’s works, the meter in “There is no Frigate” is remarkably consistent. Dickinson’s use of capital letters helps to reinforce this consistent meter by forcing the reader to place their emphasis at the beginning of each capitalized word. This means that the emphases in line 5 should scan “This Traverse may the poorest take.” The poem reflects this attention to metrical consistency when it compares the horse’s movement to “prancing Poetry” (Line 5).
The punctuation in “There is no Frigate” is, like that in most of Dickinson’s poetry, highly irregular. Dickinson often uses em-dashes (—) instead of standard punctuation marks. Em-dashes usually connote a change in tone from one clause to the next, but Dickinson’s use of them often results in ambiguous relationships between the two clauses. When used at the end of a poem, as in “There is no Frigate,” the em-dash complicates the work’s finality.
Extended Metaphors
“There is no Frigate like a Book” relies on an extended metaphor that associates literature with vehicular transportation. Extended metaphors, like traditional metaphors, compare two things and highlight their similarities. Most metaphors only sustain a single comparison. Extended metaphors, on the other hand, can sustain for an entire stanza, section, or an entire book of poetry.
Metaphors rely on a tenor (the thing being explored) and a vehicle (the thing used to explore the tenor). Dickinson literalizes the idea of a vehicle by comparing literature to a series of modes of human transportation, such as a “[f]rigate” or a “[c]hariot.” These kinds of extended metaphors are particularly useful in exploring difficult, abstract concepts. By connecting the concept of literary travel with concrete images, Dickinson’s speaker is better able to demonstrate their larger point about the value of literature. Their choice to extend the metaphor to a number of different concrete images allows them to shape and add nuance to their comparison between literature and modes of transportation.
Rhyme
“There is no Frigate like a Book” follows the same ABCB rhyme scheme as most of Dickinson’s work. This rhyme scheme, like the poem’s larger form, reflects the form of Christian hymns. The poem’s first quatrain, or set of four lines, rhymes “away” with “[p]oetry,” emphasizing the work’s larger message about poetry’s ability to transport its readers (See: Poem Analysis). With Dickinson’s contemporary New England accent, these words are nearly perfect rhymes. Dickinson also uses perfect rhymes to associate “[t]oll” (Line 6) with “[s]oul” (Line 8).
Dickinson’s reliance on perfect rhymes in “There is no Frigate” is unusual in her larger body of work. Dickinson is typically associated with slant and imperfect rhymes that give a similar feeling of discomfort or irresolution to her use of em-dashes. The simple perfect rhymes of “There is no Frigate” creates a sense of familiarity that mimics the domestic comfort of reading at home.
Related Titles
By Emily Dickinson
