"I taste a liquor never brewed" is a lyrical poem written by Emily Dickinson first published in the Springfield Daily Republican on May 4, 1861, from a now lost copy. [1] Although titled "The May-Wine" by the Republican, Dickinson never titled the poem so it is commonly referred to by its first line.
The poem celebrates Dickinson's intoxication with life in an ironic and transformative manner, drawing on themes of popular temperance reform of the time. [2]
| Close transcription [3] | First published version (1890) [4] |
|---|---|
I taste a liquor never brewed - | I taste a liquor never brewed, |
Emily Dickinson's manuscript version differs significantly from the Republican version in the last two lines of the first verse and in its final line (from Manzanilla come!).
The poem exhibits several typical features of Dickinson's poems. Like most of Dickinson's poems, it was written in ballad metre, iambic lines that alternate between four and three beats to the line. This is a less regular, more intimate, version of the common metre used in hymns such as Amazing Grace. The syllable count is not so strict and only the second and fourth lines are required to rhyme.
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The Carriage held but just Ourselves
And Immortality.
As in most of her poems, dashes typically replace punctuation and there is an idiosyncratic use of capitalization. These were edited from the poem by the Republican, but Emily regarded them as an integral part of her verse. [6]
The poem begins with a paradox (a liquor never brewed) and finishes with a striking image (a tippler supported by the sun rather than the traditional lamppost), both common devices in Dickinson's poetry. [6] It employs slant rhyme in the first quatrain, where pearl is made to rhyme with alcohol. Dickinson was censured for this (precisely this example by Andrew Lang) by some early critics while others celebrated it as avant-garde. [7] That Dickinson used the slant rhyme in her manuscript version (it is not in the Republican version) demonstrates she preferred it and indeed examples occur in most of her verse. She famously remarked, "Tell all the Truth, but tell it slant". [6]
In his essay Emily Dickinson and popular culture, David S. Reynolds considers Emily Dickinson's receptiveness to popular culture. Temperance literature was a fertile seedbed of imagery, both for her and for other writers of the period such as Thoreau she was familiar with. In the first verse, Dickinson ironically revises the popular trope of the intemperate temperance advocate, as both completely drunk and completely temperate ("a liquor never brewed"). Succeeding verses revise other popular images. For example, the third verse brings to mind Timothy Shay Arthur's Ten Nights in a Bar Room . Her use of quotation marks underscores that she is borrowing from others. Her purpose however is to transform these images, intoxicating her readers themselves with the force of her imagination. [2]
An epigram is a brief, interesting, memorable, sometimes surprising or satirical statement. The word derives from the Greek ἐπίγραμμα. This literary device has been practiced for over two millennia.
In poetry, a stanza is a group of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or indentation. Stanzas can have regular rhyme and metrical schemes, but they are not required to have either. There are many different forms of stanzas. Some stanzaic forms are simple, such as four-line quatrains. Other forms are more complex, such as the Spenserian stanza. Fixed verse poems, such as sestinas, can be defined by the number and form of their stanzas.
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was an American poet. Little-known during her life, she has since been regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry. Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, into a prominent family with strong ties to its community. After studying at the Amherst Academy for seven years in her youth, she briefly attended the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary before returning to her family's home in Amherst. Evidence suggests that Dickinson lived much of her life in isolation. Considered an eccentric by locals, she developed a penchant for white clothing and was known for her reluctance to greet guests or, later in life, even to leave her bedroom. Dickinson never married, and most of her friendships were based entirely upon correspondence.
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who went by the name Wentworth, was an American Unitarian minister, author, abolitionist, politician, and soldier. He was active in abolitionism in the United States during the 1840s and 1850s, identifying himself with disunion and militant abolitionism. He was a member of the Secret Six who supported John Brown. During the Civil War, he served as colonel of the 1st South Carolina Volunteers, the first federally authorized black regiment, from 1862 to 1864. Following the war, he wrote about his experiences with African-American soldiers and devoted much of the rest of his life to fighting for the rights of freed people, women, and other disfranchised peoples. He is also remembered as a mentor to poet Emily Dickinson.
Sonnet 3 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is often referred to as a procreation sonnet that falls within the Fair Youth sequence.
"A Prayer for My Daughter" is a poem by William Butler Yeats written in 1919 and published in 1921 as part of Yeats' collection Michael Robartes and the Dancer. It is written to Anne, his daughter with Georgie Hyde-Lees, whom Yeats married after his last marriage proposal to Maud Gonne was rejected in 1916. Yeats composed the poem while staying in a tower at Thoor Ballylee during the Anglo-Irish War, two days after Anne's birth on 26 February 1919. The poem reflects Yeats's complicated views on Irish Nationalism, sexuality, and is considered an important work of Modernist poetry.
Sonnet 99 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is a member of the Fair Youth sequence, in which the poet expresses his love towards a young man. The sonnet is generally grouped with the preceding two in the sequence, with which it shares a dominant trope and image set: the beloved is described in terms of, and judged superior to, nature and its beauties.
Sonnet 151 is the 151st of 154 poems in sonnet form by William Shakespeare published in a 1609 collection titled Shakespeare's sonnets. The sonnet belongs to the Dark Lady sequence, which distinguishes itself from The Fair Youth sequence by being more overtly sexual in its passion. Sonnet 151 is characterized as "bawdy" and is used to illustrate the difference between the spiritual love for the Fair Youth and the sexual love for the Dark Lady. The distinction is commonly made in the introduction to modern editions of the sonnets in order to avoid suggesting that Shakespeare was homosexual.
Sonnet 143 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare.
A verse is formally a single metrical line in a poetic composition. However, verse has come to represent any grouping of lines in a poetic composition, with groupings traditionally having been referred to as stanzas.
Sonnet 79 is one of 154 sonnets published by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare in 1609. It is part of the Fair Youth sequence, and the second sonnet of the Rival Poet sequence.
Sonnet 81 is one of 154 sonnets written by William Shakespeare, and published in a quarto titled Shakespeare's Sonnets in 1609. It is a part of the Fair Youth series of sonnets, and the fourth sonnet of the Rival Poet series.
Sonnet 115 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is a member of the Fair Youth sequence, in which the poet expresses his love towards a young man.
"Because I could not stop for Death" is a lyrical poem by Emily Dickinson first published posthumously in Poems: Series 1 in 1890. Dickinson's work was never authorized to be published, so it is unknown whether "Because I could not stop for Death" was completed or "abandoned". The speaker of Dickinson's poem meets personified Death. Death is a gentleman who is riding in the horse carriage that picks up the speaker in the poem and takes the speaker on her journey to the afterlife. According to Thomas H. Johnson's variorum edition of 1955 the number of this poem is "712".
"I'm Nobody! Who are you?" is a short lyric poem by Emily Dickinson first published posthumously in 1891 in Poems, Series 2. It is one of Dickinson's most popular poems.
"Success is counted sweetest" is a lyric poem by Emily Dickinson written in 1859 and published anonymously in 1864. The poem uses the images of a victorious army and one dying warrior to suggest that only one who has suffered defeat can understand success.
"I heard a Fly buzz—when I died" is the informal name for an untitled poem by American author Emily Dickinson. In the poem, the narrator is on her deathbed as she describes the progression towards her death.
Susan Huntington Gilbert Dickinson was an American writer, poet, traveler, and editor. She was a lifelong friend and sister-in-law of poet Emily Dickinson.
"There's a certain Slant of light" is a lyrical poem written by the American poet Emily Dickinson. The poem's speaker likens winter sunlight to cathedral music, and considers the spiritual effects of the light. Themes of religion and death are present in the poem, especially in connection to the theological concept of despair.
"'Hope' is the thing with feathers" is a lyric poem in ballad meter by American poet Emily Dickinson. The poem's manuscript appears in Fascicle 13, which Dickinson compiled around 1861. It is one of 19 poems in the collection, in addition to the poem "There's a certain Slant of light". With the discovery of Fascicle 13 after Dickinson's death by her sister, Lavinia Dickinson, "'Hope' is the thing with feathers" was published in 1891 in a collection of her works under the title Poems, which was edited and published by Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
| Poetry |
|  |
|---|---|---|
| People |
| |
| Related | ||