21 pages • 42 minutes read
Emily DickinsonThere's A Certain Slant Of Light
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1890A 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
As a lyrical poem, this poem uses a first-person point of view to express the speaker’s emotions. It is structured in four quatrains, or four-line stanzas.
The meter, though not consistent, most closely resembles ballad meter. Ballad meter consists of alternating couplets. The first line is tetrameter, which is four sets of syllables, and the second line is trimeter, which is three sets of syllables. Only the final stanza fully follows the meter while the other stanzas are more irregular. The first stanza sounds stilted when read according to ballad meter. Stanzas two and three have a shortened first line, which creates an abrupt effect. Dickinson commonly uses this meter, which is less regular and more conversational than other meters. This meter is also frequently used in songs, especially hymns.
Simile
Dickinson bookends this poem with two similes, or comparisons using the word “like” or “as”. These images connect the poem’s themes of death, despair, and religious belief.
The initial simile in the first stanza compares “a certain Slant of light” (Line 1) to the “Heft / Of Cathedral Tunes” (Lines 3-4). This comparison reveals a surprising quality: The light “oppresses” (Line 3). Light normally has positive associations, such as with hope, summer, day, enlightenment, and salvation. By connecting light to religious organ music, Dickinson suggests a more complicated understanding and relationship with Christianity. In addition, the music played in cathedrals resonates, physically and emotionally. In this way, Dickinson suggests the light has a similar power and effect on the speaker and their soul.
The last stanza contains the second simile. Here, the retreating light is compared to the “the Distance / On the look of Death” (Lines 15-16). The poem’s Christian theology gives this simile a doubtful and hopeless feeling. By comparing the light to the look in a corpse’s eyes, the speaker emphasizes the poem’s interest in the afterlife and what happens after death. Because the speaker emphasizes the distance, the significance of the uncertainty of the afterlife produces a sense of dread and doubt in the reader.
Alliteration
Throughout the poem, the speaker uses alliteration to create a lulling and lyrical effect. Alliteration is the repetition of the initial consonant sound in closely placed words. This calming repetition mimics the atmosphere of being in church, quietly reflecting. Three significant examples are in Lines 1, 5, and 13. The first line repeats the S sound in the phrase “certain Slant” (Line 1). By beginning the poem in this way, the speaker emphasizes the casual nature of their thoughts, as they flow calmly and softly. Line 5 repeats the H sound in the phrase “Heavenly Hurt” (Line 5). This sound softens the harshness of the idea itself. Line 13 repeats the L sound in the phrase “Landscape listens” (Line 13). The soft sound mimics the quieting of the landscape as the light shares its message.
Related Titles
By Emily Dickinson
