18 pages • 36 minutes read
Emily DickinsonWild Nights Wild Nights
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1891A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Literary Devices
Form and Meter
The poem looks organized, with the lines arranged in three quatrains (stanzas of four lines), and the tidy appearance contrasts with the intense tone to create a captivating tension. Dickinson reinforces the frenetic feeling by forgoing a predictable meter. The reader can read Line 1 as a spondee, pronouncing “Wild” as one syllable and stressing “Wild” and “nights.” Conversely, the reader can see Line 1 as iambic trimeter, not stressing the “wi” in “wild,” stressing the “ld,” and not stressing “nights.” The iambic trimeter adds to the tension, as the unstressed “nights” contrasts with the emphatic exclamation mark. Like the speaker and addressee’s relationship, the meter is an adventure with many possibilities.
Similar to the meter, the rhyme scheme follows no pattern: In Stanza 1, Lines 2, 3, and 4, with the final words of each line ending on an “e” sound. In Stanza 2, Lines 6, 7, and 8, rhyme—though the rhymes qualify as slant rhymes, requiring nonstandard pronunciations of “port,” “Compass,” and “Chart.” In Stanza 3, Dickinson returns to the “e” rhyme, pairing “Sea” (Line 10) with “thee” (Line 12), and creating a possible slant rhyme with “Eden” (Line 9). The emphasis on “e” rhymes links to the “e” sound of Emily, adding to the claim that the speaker is Emily and the poem is from her.
Diction
Diction is a literary device where the poet uses specific words or sounds to convey a feeling, tone, theme, motif, and so on. In “Wild nights - Wild nights!,” Dickinson uses the words “I” (Lines 2, 11) and “thee” to link to the epistolary genre (Lines 2, 12). The personal pronouns turn the poem into a letter. The author of the letter is the speaker (the “I”), and the addressee is the “thee” or “you." Terms like “wild nights” and “luxury” reinforce the sumptuous feelings the speaker has for the addressee and reveal the intense relationship. The hyperbolic diction matches the speaker’s dramatic passion. On a more basic level, Dickinson uses hard t and c sounds throughout the poem, which create a harsh, strong tone that matches the intensity of the speaker’s feelings and the wild scenery.
The diction is also naval, centering on seas and ships. The naval words turn the poem into a sea adventure. The speaker is on the sea, and the sea symbolizes the addressee. As the speaker is with the addressee, “the winds” (Line 5) can’t blow them away, nor does the speaker need a “Compass” (Line 7) or a “Chart” (Line 8). Direction is superfluous. The speaker doesn’t have to go anywhere; they just have to be with the sea. The constant presence of naval terms in Stanzas 2 and 3 subverts gender norms, arguably placing two women in a traditionally all-male territory—a high-seas journey.
Metaphor
Metaphor helps the poet show something from a fresh angle. A metaphor implies that one thing is like another, even though the first isn’t literally the second. In “Wild nights - Wild nights!,” the central metaphor is naval. The speaker and the addressee are not a sea and a boat: Setting aside Sarah Arvio’s reading, the speaker and the addressee are people, but the naval metaphor turns them into something else. The metaphor reveals the power of the speaker’s emotions and their passion to be with the addressee.
The metaphor displays how intense relationships can possess the theatrics of a journey at sea. Thus, the erotic love poem becomes a high-seas adventure. The metaphor also rejects the presence of an explicit goal. The speaker isn’t hunting a white whale like Ahab in Moby Dick or trying to achieve a specific aim. By being with the sea, they’ve already accomplished their purpose. The sea represents the addressee, and that’s what the speaker wants, so they’re “Done with the Compass / Done with the Chart” (Lines 7-8). The sea/addressee is the sole direction the speaker needs. Presumably, wherever they go is acceptable, as they’ll be together.
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By Emily Dickinson
