Wednesday, November 9, 2016

What are the types of figurative language, poetic devices, and forms of poetry used in "I'm Nobody" by Emily Dickinson?

"I’m Nobody!" by Emily Dickinson uses several different types of poetic devices. The most obvious are rhyme and meter. The first stanza uses a somewhat irregular rhythmic pattern but the second stanza contains regular alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter. The rhyme scheme of both stanzas is ABCB, although the rhyme in the first stanza of "too" with "know" is an off-rhyme rather than a regular one.


Another major figure used simile, particularly the comparison of being somebody to being like a frog in the second stanza.


The first stanza displays the figure of hyperbole or exaggeration in its claims.


Next, there is allusion. Odysseus in the Odyssey fools Polyphemus by giving his name as "Nobody;" thus we get a sense of lack of identity as a sort of protective device for the poet Dickinson, just as it was for Odysseus. 


Finally, Dickinson uses idiosyncratic punctuation, including dashes and exclamation points, to create and oddly disjoint and exclamatory effect in the poem. 

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