Emily Dickinson Study Guide

Emily Dickinson Final Test Study Guide “The Soul selects her own Society” 1. When does the soul shut the door? 2. How does the soul react to the chariots and the emperor? 3. After the soul chooses one society, she sometimes does what? 4. What can you infer about the soul from the words shuts, unmoved, and close? 5. What does the language of the poem demonstrate about the poet? 6. What does the soul determine about a person? “This is my letter to the World” 7. What does the ending of “This is my letter to the World” reveal about the speaker? 8.

What can you infer from the lines “Her Message is committed / To Hands I cannot see—”? . Which lines in “This is my letter to the World” relate to the poet’s reclusive nature? 10. What is the speaker referring to in “for love of Her—Sweet—countrymen—”? “Tell all the Truth but tell it slant” 11. According to the speaker what is the nature of truth? 12. How does the speaker in say the truth should be revealed? 13.

According to the speaker what is slant truth? 14. To what does Dickinson compare truth? “Success is counted sweetest” 15. According to the speaker what has been the experience of the people who value success the most?

16. What does the nectar symbolize? 17. Describe the tone of the poem. 8. What aspect of Dickinson’s own life might have she been commenting on in this poem? 19. Dickinson uses a straightforward, neutral tone to emphasize what fact from the speaker? 20. Which image appeals most strongly to the sense of sound? “Because I could not stop for Death” 21. What is noteworthy about the things that Death’s carriage passes? 22. How is the way Death is portrayed ironic? 23. What is the speaker’s attitude toward death? “Much Madness is divinest Sense” 24. Dickinson compares what two ideas in this poem? 25. Defining madness as the “divinest Sense” is an example of what literary device? I heard a Fly buzz—when I died” 26. How does the speaker react to death? 27. What does the speaker mean in the lines “I willed my Keepsakes—Signed away / What portion of me be / Assignable”? 28. What is ironic about the buzzing of the fly? 29. What is the mood of the first two stanzas? “My life closed twice before its close” 30. What is an accurate paraphrase of the first line/title? 31. How does the speaker feel about loss? “Letter to Higginson” 32. What does Dickinson reveal about herself when she writes, “Thank you for the surgery; it was not so painful as I supposed”?

33. Why might Higginson inquire about Dickinson’s books? 4. What can the reader infer about Dickinson’s purpose in writing the letter to Higginson? 35. What can the reader infer about Dickinson’s purpose for initially writing to Higginson? 36. What does Dickinson indicate about her family when she writes that her lexicon was her only companion? 37. According to Dickinson, whey does her second tutor leave? 38. How does Dickinson reveal her relationship with her mother in the letter? 39. What is Dickinson style of writing like in her letter? 40. What about the letter classifies it as a primary source? 41. What way can Dickinson’s letter be seen as distinctly different from her poems?