I dwell in Possibility - by Emily Dickinson
Analysis
"I dwell in Possibility -" is a poem by Emily Dickinson. This writing can be seen as about Dickinson's personal life. For most of her life, she was seen as a shut-in. She rarely left. The poem is about possibilities of visitors, more windows, more doors, a better house, and Dickinson stating, "spreading wide my narrow Hands". As if hugging someone.
This poem is written as a three stanza work with four lines in each. Dickinson continues her poetry style of writing the first and third lines longer than the second and fourth. She's also keeping true to herself in making the second and fourth lines triameter and rhyming. However, she doesn't make the first and third meters rhyme nor have a consistent meter structure. Those lines are simply used as a way to lead in to the others.
Johnson number: 657
Poem
I dwell in Possibility - I dwell in Possibility - A fairer House than Prose - More numerous of Windows - Superior - for Doors - Of Chambers as the Cedars - Impregnable of Eye - And for an Everlasting Roof The Gambrels of the Sky - Of Visitors--the fairest - For Occupation - This - The spreading wide my narrow Hands To gather Paradise -
Next: I Envy Seas, Whereon He Rides
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Nationality
American
Literary Movement
19th Century
Subjects
Life, Hope