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Reliance on clear language and direct visual images separated the works of the Imagists and Emily Dickinson from the late Victorian poetry. Instead of the elaborate verse where images served as decorations illustrating the texts main idea, the exacting visual image articulated with painstaking clarity became the poems essence the idea itself. At the same time, the fact of articulating the image in direct and straightforward language does not make such poetry shallow. While the image itself is easy to discern, there is still more to it than immediately meets the eye in other words, the image-centered poetry is simple but not simplistic. Emily Dickinsons Hope is a thing with feathers may serve as an excellent example of everything discussed above. The author carefully constructs the titular image of hope as a little bird by operating on several levels of meaning and perception, despite the deceptive simplicity of the language used. Dickinson describes hope as a bird within the text, the liberal use of dashes stresses the idea of pushing onward in the visual appearance of the poem, and the strangely elaborate wording of the first line emphasizes the contrast between the physical description and spiritual subject matter.
First and foremost, Dickinson constructs the image within the text itself through purely lexical means. It is relatively straightforward and, as mentioned above, amounts to representing hope as a little yet resilient bird. The first line already sets up the image by referring to feathers, which immediately invokes accusations with birds in the readers mind (Dickinson, 1861). Soon after that, the author again refers to hope as singing a tune without the words (Dickinson, 1861). Thus, the poem invokes yet another characteristic of many birds in the popular imagination the fact that they sing, albeit unintelligibly. Consequently, when the word Bird is finally uttered in the second half of the poem, no less the readers have already established the image of hope as a bird in their minds (Dickinson, 1861). The author adds several more strokes to this laconic image by designating the bird as small and contrasting her against the Gale and the storm, which seek to bring her down. Thus, within the text, she constructs the visual image of hope as a small bird struggling and prevailing despite the mighty storms with a careful and measured use of precise and evocative wording.
However, apart from the image crafted within the poem, there is also the image on the meta-level that is, the poem itself as it visually appears on paper or screen. In this regard, the most notable feature is Dickinsons liberal use of dashes. There are thirteen of these in the poem, and nine are used at the end of their respective lines in other words, three-quarters of all lines end with this particular punctuation. Since dashes signify the continuation of sentence and thought, their visual prevalence gives the poem a sense of never-broken continuity. It resonates well with the fourth line, in which the poem stresses that the hopes song never stops at all (Dickinson, 1861). It was already mentioned above that this refusal to stop the song despite the circumstances is one of the crucial components of Dickinsons (1861) hope-as-bird imagery. Thanks to the ever-present dashes, the poem itself, as it visually appears on the page, also looks as if it never stops at all (Dickinson, 1861). Thus, apart from constructing the image of hope as a bird singing its song despite any circumstances within the text, the author reinforces it through the visual appearance of the poem itself.
Finally, the poems central image has yet another layer to it that is hidden from plain sight, and this one highlights the contrast between the imagery and subject matter to reveal more about the text. The original description of hope as a thing with feathers may seem wordy and needlessly elaborate, especially when compared to the succinct and precise language of the rest of the poem (Dickinson, 1861). Thus, Dickinson must have had a specific reason to word it in this exact way. One of the closest reference points, which comes to mind due to its striking similarity, is Platos famous definition of a human as a two-legged thing without feathers. Yet while Dickinson (1861) constructs her visual image with the same descriptive language of physical features, her image, unlike Platos, deals with spiritual matters. The author may describe hope as a signing bird, but she immediately points out that this bird perches in the soul (Dickinson, 1861). By doing that, she contrasts the vividly physical language of the description with the distinctly non-corporeal subject matter of the human psyche. For her, a human is not a featherless biped but a creature with a soul where hope resides. With this in mind, the image crafted in Hope is a thing with feathers may serve as a gentle mockery of the attempts to define humanity through physical appearance rather than mental and spiritual features.
Reference
Dickinson, E. (1861). Hope is a thing with feathers. Poetry Foundation.
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