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Dickinson and Patriarchal Meter: A Theory of Metrical Codes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

A. R. C. Finch
A. R. C. Finch*
Affiliation:
Stanford University, Stanford, California
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Abstract

An analysis of Emily Dickinson's metrics suggests that her meters—even in individual lines of poetry—can be read as signs for the connotations they have acquired and for the cultural contexts that have empowered them. Iambic pentameter, the dominant meter in Dickinson's poetic lineage and culture, although rare in her work, plays a significant role in some of her most famous poems. Dickinson's iambic pentameters usually occur in a dynamic with her ordinary meter, the hymn stanza, a relation that reflects her ambivalence toward the male-identified poetic authority represented by iambic pentameter. Reading key poems for their semantic-metrical connections—the ways in which the semantic and metrical levels comment on each other—illuminates Dickinson's association of canonical poetic strength with patriarchal structures such as Christianity, with social conventions of fame and power, and with both triumph and failure.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 102 , Issue 2 , March 1987 , pp. 166 - 176
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1987

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