Realism in Poetry
Realism in PoetryRealism
In literature realism is an attempt to describe human behavior and surroundings or to represent figures and objects exactly as they act or appear in life. Realism is concerned directly with what is absorbed by the senses. The poems, “‘Hope’ Is the Thing with Feathers” and “If You Were Coming in the Fall” by Emily Dickinson rare poems which were written in the realist time period. Realism is evident in the descriptive phrases the author uses to paint a mental picture for the reader and to have the reader imagine the smells and feelings of objects in the poems and by using clear direct prose.
In Emily Dickinson’s poem, “‘Hope’ Is the Thing with Feathers”; the poem is comparing the feeling of hope to that of a bird in a person’s soul. In the third line she writes that the bird “perches in the soul - and sings the tune without words.” In this stanza Emily Dickinson is trying to create the image of hope staying inside a soul of a person, staying there quietly not to bother the person but there if ever needed. Throughout the rest of the poem she writes that she heard the bird in hardest times and the bird never asked anything of her. She is basically saying that hope is always there for her in the hardest situations but she never owes anything back to it. In this poem realism is shown through the use of words to create a picture of what...
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