Metaphors In Emily Dickinson's Poem 'Wild Nights'

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Dickinson's poem 'Wild Nights' contains some interesting uses of metaphors. This mode of figurative language is used to hide yet emphasise the true meaning, and can be unravelled by applying tenor, vehicle and ground. The tenor is the meaning of said metaphor, the vehicle is the diction used and the ground is the point of similarity. By finding these key factors we can establish when, how and why a metaphor is being used. Sailing appears to be the main theme running through the poem; this theme connotes to the true meaning of the poem which I believe to be freedom and love. This is to say that the relationship that Dickinson has with the person she shares her wild nights with is the same as that between a sailor and his love for the sea and…show more content…
The octave following an ABBA rhyme scheme and mostly in traditional iambic pentameter except in lines where more stress was needed for example in the trisyllable molossus "break, blow, burn" where alliteration is also used to emphasise the chosen diction. This rare type of foot slows the pace of the poem which forces us to focus in on this triple. I would argue that onomatopoeia is also present here as the plosive "b" appears to mimic the action of the words, this also slows our reading and focuses us, highlight the sheer amount of work to be done and the amount of pain he will have to endure to be made "new". This idea of being re-made has connotations with the born again Christian which also supports that he has lots of work to do before he feels that he has reached God or been accepted by Him. The rhyme scheme then changes to CDCE, interestingly, with the volta of the sonnet in line 9 where the suggestion for an aggressive need for God then changes to a need for his love and the semantic field of marriage is apparent. In this comes a metaphysical conceit "but I am betroth'd unto your enemy; Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again". Here, Donne is suggesting that he his married to Satan and wants God to undo this marriage, however it is not physically possible for him to be married to Satan or for God to divorce them; thus the metaphysical conceit is formed. This personifies the…show more content…
These emotions therefore open doors to parallel understandings of life such as reality and imagination. "My sense, as though hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains" only emphasising Keats need to find somewhere better than his reality. The classical register used also supports this as I would argue, that is takes us to his time. It removes us from our reality where such register is rarely used. Where before there would have been a lack of understanding due to many of his current readers not having a classical education, Keats has in fact opened the doors for us to investigate this new world, just as he wants to investigate the world of the Nightingale and nature. Wordsworth said that; "Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility" and I would argue that the enjambment used in this poem echoes this idea. Although, I believe that this was Keats intention, as the arrangement of the poem is rather artificial when looked at in greater detail as though he specifically planned for the poem to be read like a wandering trail of thought. The hyperbolic sentences also support this as they appear as an 'epiphany', interrupting the poems structure; "O for a beaker full of the warm
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