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Emily DickinsonA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
In Paradise Lost, John Milton’s interpretation of Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden, the serpent—which Milton, following Christian tradition, identifies with Satan—is infamously a seductive, possibly heroic, figure. This epic was incredibly influential on Dickinson’s literary milieu: Mount Holyoke graduates like Dickinson were “expected to leave with as thorough a knowledge of Paradise Lost as […] the King James Bible” (R. McClure Smith, The Seductions of Emily Dickinson. U of Alabama Press, 1997. Page 26); barring that, Dickinson would have absorbed Milton “through Emerson, Melville, the Brontës, the Brownings, Georgoe Eliot” (Eleanor Heginbotham, “‘Paradise Fictitious’: Dickinson’s Milton.” The Emily Dickinson Journal 7.1, 1998).
In “A narrow Fellow in the Grass (1096),” the narrow serpent performs a microcosmic rendering of the Edenic Fall. The speaker’s first experience with the snake moves from the blissful ignorance of paradise to the mortal realm of fear and trembling: At first, his feet are “Barefoot” (Line 11), unclothed like Adam and Eve; later, he cannot see a snake without having a panic attack. The poem mirrors this journey from unawareness to knowledge for the reader with its riddle-like avoidance of the word “snake,” which the reader must infer from the signifier “narrow Fellow” that slithers away (Line 1).
By Emily Dickinson
A Bird, came down the Walk
A Bird, came down the Walk
Emily Dickinson
A Clock stopped—
A Clock stopped—
Emily Dickinson
Because I Could Not Stop for Death
Because I Could Not Stop for Death
Emily Dickinson
"Faith" is a fine invention
"Faith" is a fine invention
Emily Dickinson
Fame Is a Fickle Food (1702)
Fame Is a Fickle Food (1702)
Emily Dickinson
Hope is a strange invention
Hope is a strange invention
Emily Dickinson
"Hope" Is the Thing with Feathers
"Hope" Is the Thing with Feathers
Emily Dickinson
I Can Wade Grief
I Can Wade Grief
Emily Dickinson
I Felt a Cleaving in my Mind
I Felt a Cleaving in my Mind
Emily Dickinson
I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain
I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain
Emily Dickinson
If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking
If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking
Emily Dickinson
If I should die
If I should die
Emily Dickinson
If you were coming in the fall
If you were coming in the fall
Emily Dickinson
I heard a Fly buzz — when I died
I heard a Fly buzz — when I died
Emily Dickinson
I'm Nobody! Who Are You?
I'm Nobody! Who Are You?
Emily Dickinson
Much Madness is divinest Sense—
Much Madness is divinest Sense—
Emily Dickinson
Success Is Counted Sweetest
Success Is Counted Sweetest
Emily Dickinson
Tell all the truth but tell it slant
Tell all the truth but tell it slant
Emily Dickinson
The Only News I Know
The Only News I Know
Emily Dickinson
There is no Frigate like a Book
There is no Frigate like a Book
Emily Dickinson