American Literature Week 4 CD - Essay Example

In a style characteristic to her, Emily Dickinson in ‘Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—‘ leaves her reader with a message. The gist of the poem is a clear recommendation that truth must be stated obliquely because a sudden exposure can hurt or overwhelm us. “Too bright for our infirm Delight The Truths superb surprise” (Dickinson, 1955)Furthermore, the poem has been organized in a manner that is a repetition and strengthening of the central theme of truth being put lightly. Actually, more than developing her central theme further, she seems to reword it as the poem goes on.

The poems complete but unpunctuated sentences (line 1, line 2, lines 3-4, and lines 5-8,) advance a variation of what has already been stated in the first. The second line, for instance, parallels the first by altering the linear "slant" to a curved "Circuit," thereby suggesting circuitousness too.The epic simile “As Lightning” that begins the second half of the poem, for instance, seems to have been put to reinforce the need for slanted telling, but upon close inspection the analogy is weak here.

Lightning is an image of truth, and children of ourselves, truths beholders. What is unclear is how an "explanation kind" will ward off the dangers of being exposed to truth? A child when frightened by the storm can be quieted down and reassured. by its parents, but its vulnerability is not lessened by it. The perceived dangers in the mind may be dispelled, but the real still remain. (Stonum, 1990)According to the implications of the lightning imagery, we can never grasp the truths illumination.

Unless the truth dazzles gradually, we shall all be blinded by its intensity. Implying that, if we seek truth in lightning, we shall be blinded at the moment of truth. If we avoid such folly, we are still blind because not having seen the light; we wander in darkness, satiating our hearts and minds with kind but false explanations nature and the world.Works CitedDickinson, Emily (1960). Tell all the Truth but tell it slant. Poem 1129. Johnson, Thomas H. (ed). 1960. The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson.

Boston: Little, Brown & Co.Stonum, G. L. (1990). On 1129 ("tell all the truth but tell it slant--") . Retrieved from http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/dickinson/1129.htm