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Analysis and comments on "Hope" is the thing with feathers by Emily Dickinson

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Comment 17 of 27, added on December 3rd, 2005 at 3:17 PM.

I think that this poem really describes hope in a good way and that hope
will never leave us, even when we think it has. We just have to believe.

Kathy from United States
Comment 16 of 27, added on November 6th, 2005 at 11:05 AM.

i like this poem it made me think about my life and alot of shit that has
happened in my life! and the people i knew and loved that died from suicide
or cancer... and without reading this poem i don't think i would be as
hopeful as i am today

caitlin from United States
Comment 15 of 27, added on September 18th, 2005 at 3:58 AM.

i interested when i read this poem because i learnd a very important
message;it learnd me how to be strong,how to contuniue when i have
problem.My teacher was very clever when she explained the poem.

Colla from Yemen
Comment 14 of 27, added on June 29th, 2005 at 6:59 AM.

i love this poem. It's in my favorite poem book. I have repeated this many
times to myself when my health or my family's or situations are not good.
It's saved me from depression and despair. I am putting this on a card to
accompany a figurine of Hope I'm sending to my sister who has recently been
diagnosed with Cancer

eleanor O'Donnell from United States
Comment 13 of 27, added on June 29th, 2005 at 2:53 AM.

How wrong Emily Dickinson was! Hope is not "the thing with feathers." The
thing with feathers has turned out to be my nephew. I must take him to a
specialist in Zurich.

Woody Allen

Bob from United States
Comment 12 of 27, added on June 3rd, 2005 at 12:22 PM.

Damn!!! I'm in a hopeless situation!!! Final exams in 5days!!!! Damn you
dickinson!!!!! Should have started studying ages ago!!!!!!!!!!!

Shaun from Ireland
Comment 11 of 27, added on April 24th, 2005 at 9:51 PM.

This poem is nothing short of amazing. We take hope for granted and it
keeps us alive and going and she points out that it never asks anything
from us.

Alex M.
Comment 10 of 27, added on April 5th, 2005 at 5:24 PM.

I really like this poem. It gives me the will to go on when things get bad.
I also read it when I need inspiration for a poem of my own. The poem Ms.
Dickinson inspired is the following couplet:
Back and forth, the waves will go
Where the lead, I do not know

Holly from United States
Comment 9 of 27, added on March 21st, 2005 at 12:32 AM.

“’Hope’ is the thing with feathers” is my favorite Dickinson poem. When we
studied her poetry my Junior year of high school, I chose this poem to
memorize and it has stuck with me ever since. I love to make up analogies
for experiences or feelings I or others have had. I frequently add examples
to conversations I have with my friends. Consequently, her personification
of hope as a bird really strikes a cord in my brain. I love the way she
uses the experiences of a bird as something her audience could relate to.
She uses wonderfully vibrant pictures to describe that ambiguous word of
Hope.

Kristin from United States
Comment 8 of 27, added on March 9th, 2005 at 11:33 AM.

For Dickinson, hope is an independent gift. It is delicate and fragile,
yet strong and indominatble, a paradoxical quality that is reflected in the
image
"and sore must be the storm-
That could abash the little Bird"


Antoinette:

The forward motin of the lines with Dickinson's strange punctutation, also
helps to suggest that this is a continuing state of mind, not just a
temporary high point

"and never stops - at all -"

the underlying sadness as you call it is often seen more as a curiosity as
she cannot understand hope and so must personify it as a bird to express
her feelings of it.

orla from Ireland

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Information about "Hope" is the thing with feathers

Poet: Emily Dickinson
Poem: 254. "Hope" is the thing with feathers
Volume: Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
Year: 1955
Added: Jan 9 2004
Viewed: 18361 times
Poem of the Day: Jan 19 2004


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