Learn about METAPHORS in English with a poem by Emily Dickinson

In this lesson, we will look at a poem by an American poet, Emily Dickinson. In this poem, she describes the sunrise and sunset with metaphors. A metaphor is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is used in a non-literal way to describe something else. Metaphors help the reader get a deeper understanding of the situation the author is trying to convey. You will see how Dickinson almost makes you feel and experience the sunrise and sunset with words only. Watch the lesson to learn more about how to analyse a poem and also improve your reading and writing skills.

Take the quiz at https://www.engvid.com/metaphors-in-english-emily-dickinson-poem/

Next, watch these other lessons about poetry in English:

Learn English with a Poem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVidL1o28gw&list=PLjvCo2ax1ZUdXCO23ICAF0H3N9c35SWfv&index=65

English Poetry – The Limerick: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5fOvCTBIzQ&list=PLjvCo2ax1ZUdXCO23ICAF0H3N9c35SWfv&index=10

TRANSCRIPT

Hello. I'm Gill from engVid, and today's lesson is a poem. When I did a previous poem called: "The Owl and the Pussycat" by Edward Lear, people said: "Oh, please give us some more poems", so here is one which I hope you enjoy. Okay, so it's a poem by a woman called Emily Dickinson, and she was American. And she lived from 1830 to 1886, and she lived in a place called Amherst in Massachusetts in the eastern... On the eastern side of America; New England. Okay.

And she... She was the kind of person who likes to stay at home most of the time; she didn't go out much. She stayed in her own room, I think writing poetry most of the time; maybe writing letters as well. But she wrote a lot of poetry; and not much of it was published in her lifetime, but it was found after she died, and then it was all published. I think she only published one or two poems in her lifetime. Okay.

So, here is the first half of a poem by Emily Dickinson. And it's very simple, really. It's not a difficult poem. There are some words which may be unfamiliar, but I'll explain them as we go along. Okay. So, here we are, so the poem begins:

"I'll tell you how the sun rose, -
A ribbon at a time.
The steeples swam in amethyst,
The news like squirrels ran."

Okay, so there may be a few words there that you're not familiar with, so let's have a look. So, she's talking to somebody; maybe the person who's reading the poem, and she's telling them: "I'll tell you how the sun rose". She's going to describe what it looked like when the sun came up in the morning. Okay.

And it was "a ribbon at a time". So, when you see the sun and the clouds in the sky sometimes, you have sort of lines in the sky that look... They could look... Be like ribbons; pieces of silk, ribbons that people put in their hair and so on. So, the way it looked as the sun rose, there were coloured lines in the sky-okay-like that. So, a ribbon at a time as the sun came up, these lines appeared. Okay.

The steeples... "steeples" are on a building; they're a pointed thing, like this. So, it's often usually a church building where you have a pointed... It's called a "spire" as well. A "steeple" or a "spire", so that's a steeple - that pointed bit. So, the steeples, there's more than one. So, if she's looking out of her bedroom window, seeing the town and seeing the sun coming up, she's seeing all the buildings as well in the town. There may be several church buildings with a pointed spire or steeple.

So, the steeple swam... swimming. So, it sounds like... It sounds strange because it's more metaphorical; that's why it's poetry. It's not literally true, but the metaphor. "The steeples swam in amethyst". So, "amethyst" is a deep blue colour. So, there's a sort of blue around the steeples in the sky; a deep blue colour. So, it's as if the steeples are swimming; they're almost moving against the sky because of the effects of the light as the sun comes up. So, the steeples swam. It's almost as if they're in water; swimming in water. So, the blue is like water, as well as being the blue of the sky. Okay.

"The news like squirrels ran". "News" we don't know. What? What news? Oh, the news that the sun is rising? Could it be that? Sometimes in a poem it's not exactly clear what's happening; what's going on. What is the news? The news that the sun is rising, perhaps; that a new day is beginning. It's getting light. So, people start to wake up, and animals and birds start to wake up. "Ah, it's a new day." That may be what the news is.

And a "squirrel" is a little animal. Oo, I'll try and draw one. The main thing is that it has a long tail, like that. So, little squirrels, they can go up a tree, and think things like that, you know. So: "The news like squirrels ran". The news ran like squirrels. The way squirrels run - very quickly. So, the news spreads very quickly that it's a new day; everybody wakes up and thinks: "Oh, the new day is starting." You soon notice when the sun rises. Okay. […]

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