Poetic Elements Analysis Outline PEAO

Title: A narrow Fellow in the Grass

The title and poem is about a snake.

Author: Emily Dickinson

Tone: Warning, Depressing

Mood/Atmosphere: vulnerable, cautious, wiser words

Speaker: An older boy or man character is speaking, not the author.

Audience: Travellers, educated adults.

Subject or Topic: Be aware of your surroundings.

Type of Poem: Lyrical Ballad

Rhyme Scheme: abcb rhyme scheme

Rhythm: iambic

Meter: Tetrameter, trimeter alternating lines

Structure: written in ballad quatrains

Enjambment or end stops: Throughout the poem, there are some lines that
continue on straight into the next, without pause, and some that end and need a
pause to sound rhythmic. A very noticeable enjambment occurs in the third and
fourth stanzas, which carry the same thought, almost holding the two together.
The ends stops are the dashes in Dickinsons poem, and almost every stanza
has an end stop.

Diction and syntax: She uses, seemingly random, capitalization to acknowledge

the words symbolic meaning.

Arrangement of verse and stanza: The arrangement of each verse in each

stanza does not change throughout the poem.

Paraphrase:
The poems first stanza is asking if you have ever seen a snake on a trail or path,
and telling you that snakes pop up suddenly, even though you can see where
they have been. The second stanza explains how the grass parts very narrowly
 to fit a snakes body, and that you can see the snakes path clearly, but not where
the snake exactly is. The third stanza explains that the snake like a boggy
grounds where no crops can grow, and that, as a child, the speaker ran around
that area barefoot. The fourth stanza explains how when turning his back to the
sun, the speaking bent down to pick up the snake, not knowing that was what it
was. The fifth stanza talks about how the speaker knows several of natures
people, and how they share a mutual bond of respect for one another. The final
stanza tells of the speakers fear of the snake.

Analysis:
This poem is really about sins hold on people and the influence sin has on
younger people. The symbolism throughout each stanza comes back to peoples
morals and the sin that lurks in our world, hiding in the tall grass, as the poem put
it. The first stanza is about how we dont know that we are in the presence of
something bad until it jumps out at us and becomes visible. The second stanza
symbolizes the line between good and evil, where you never know whats good
or bad until the decision is right at your feet. The third stanza explains that sin
likes to lurk in places of darkness, and as it goes into the fourth stanza the poem
is about the realization as you get older of what is wrong and the troubles you
may face. The fifth stanza is about the speakers relations with all of the
creatures in the world, and how he has a good relationship with all of them. The
sixth stanza is about how, whenever encountered by sin or satan, the speaker
always gets a cold feeling, like something bad is going to happen.

Sound Devices:
The rhyming slowly gets closer and closer together as each stanza, meaning that
the rhymes go from barely rhyming, to a slant rhyme, to a perfect rhyme.
Alliteration is used in the first stanza, with the letter n, which is too acknowledge
rejection or disapproval. It is also used in the second stanza, with the letter s,
which gets across the idea of sin, snake, satan, and fear.

Similes, Metaphors, Allusions and Symbols: There is a simile in the fourth

paragraph, when the snake is compared to a whip in size and shape. It does not
use Like or As, but it is still making a comparison. A Floor too cool for Corn is
an allusion of biblical text. Dickinsons use of the snake is an allusion for
Christianitys satan.
1. Snake= Satan, sin, devil, etc.
2. Boggy ground= places of evil
3. Turning to stoop and pick of the whip like thing= turning your back to God and
bowing to a higher power in order to reach it
4. The grass dividing= the line between good and evil
5. Natures people= Gods creatures
6. Zero at the bone= feeling frozen and scared
7. Boy and barefoot= innocent and unknowing

Imagery:
 Touch:
Without a tighter Breathing
And Zero at the Bone.

When stooping to secure it

It wrinkled And was gone -

Sight:
He likes a Boggy Acre -
A Floor too cool for Corn -

The Grass divides as with a Comb,

A spotted Shaft is seen,
And then it closes at your Feet
And opens further on -

Theme: Be aware of the line between good and bad.