Question

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without the words,

And never stops at all,



And sweetest in the gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm.



I've heard it in the chillest land,

And on the strangest sea:

Yet, never, in extremity,

It asked a crumb of me.

–“Hope is the thing with feathers,”
Emily Dickinson

Write three to four sentences in which you analyze Dickinson’s style in this poem. Be sure to discuss one or two specific elements that are characteristic of Dickinson’s poems, and explain their effects on this poem.

Answer 1

Dickinson’s style in this poem centers on an extended metaphor—“Hope” is a bird—which compresses a large abstract idea into a vivid, tactile image that feels immediate and familiar. Her short lines and hymn-like quatrains (common meter) give the poem a sing-song, musical quality, while characteristic dashes and occasional slant rhymes create breath-like pauses and a sense of open-endedness. Those techniques together make hope seem both persistent and ineffable—always singing, self-sustaining, and quietly generous even amid storm and extremity.