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.
Further Reading & Resources
Related Poems
“On Imagination” by Phillis Wheatley (1773)
Phillis Wheatley, born an enslaved person, was one of the best-known poets in America prior to the Civil War. Her poem “On Imagination” highlights the imagination’s ability to allow one to escape their circumstances. Like Dickinson’s “There is no Frigate like a Book,” Wheatley’s speaker emphasizes the “swiftness of [imagination’s] course” (Line 14) compared to conventional travel. Wheatley’s engagement with the imagination predates and foreshadows ideas developed by British Romantic and American Transcendentalist thinkers, who argued for the imagination’s power in the intellectual mainstream.
“Foreign Lands” by Robert Louis Stevenson (1913)
This children’s poem by Robert Louis Stevenson provides a different perspective on the imagination. Rather than traveling to distant lands through works of literature, Stevenson’s child speaker sees “foreign lands” (Line 4) by climbing to the top of a cherry tree. Stevenson’s poem ends with his speaker imagining themselves finding a higher tree where they can see to the imagination’s limits.
“Tell all the truth but tell it slant" by Emily Dickinson (1945)
Dickinson likely wrote “Tell all the truth but tell it slant” around the same time as “There is no Frigate like a Book.” The two poems share the same form (See: Literary Devices), and both deal with the relationship between reader and writer. Critics read the poem’s titular first line, “Tell all the truth but tell it slant” (Line 1), as an indication of Dickinson’s own poetic intention. The poem can be read as an Ars Poetica poem, or a poem that explores the art of writing poetry. “There is no Frigate like a Book,” meanwhile, explores the art of reading poetry.
“Psalm 16” from the Book of Psalms
Dickinson’s poetic form is influenced by her close study of Biblical verse. Though Dickinson expressed religious skepticism in her work and life, her copy of the King James Bible remained one of her favorite books. The text’s influence is perhaps most clear when comparing her work to the Book of Psalms in the Old Testament. Dickinson would have read the Book of Psalms in school or under the influence of the Amherst religious revival.
Further Literary Resources
“A Defence of Poetry” by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1840)
Percy Bysshe Shelley is a major Romantic poet, and his essay “A Defence of Poetry” is one of the most succinct explanations of the imagination’s role in Romantic poetry. For Shelley, the imagination is essential to recognize similarities between things. Though it is not clear that Dickinson read Shelley first hand, the ideas expressed in “A Defence of Poetry” became popular among American Transcendentalist poets and philosophers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson.
“Society and Solitude” by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870)
Dickinson thought highly of Transcendentalists like Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Dickinson’s non-conformist lifestyle mirrored many Transcendentalist philosophies of self-reliance, natural beauty, and simple living. Emerson’s essay, Society and Solitude, engages with some of the most salient ideas behind the philosophy.
“Emily Dickinson’s Letters” by Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1891)
One of Dickinson’s main correspondents, Thomas Wentworth Higginson was an American Unitarian minister and author. Higginson wrote “Emily Dickinson’s Letters” in response to her growing posthumous fame and the public desire to know more about her. This article, published five years after Dickinson’s death, recounts Higginson’s experience of Dickinson as a friend and contemporary.
“Emily Dickinson Was Less Reclusive Than We Think” by Daniel Larkin (2017)
Daniel Larkin’s review of a Dickinson exhibit at the Morgan Library & Museum highlights the poet’s continued popularity. Larkin emphasizes how a study of Dickinson’s ephemera troubles the idea of her reclusion from the outside world. Larkin suggests that Dickinson’s reclusion is better understood as part of a crafted persona than a biographical fact.
Listen to Poem
This reading of “There is no Frigate like a Book” provides a sense of the work’s “prancing” (Line 4) quality. Though words like “away” (Line 2) and “Poetry” (Line 4) do not rhyme in the reader’s accent, this reading’s attention to rhythm and capitalization showcases where Dickinson’s emphases might be.
Related Titles
By Emily Dickinson
