18 pages • 36 minutes read
"Hope" Is the Thing with Feathers
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Further Reading & Resources
Related Poems
"Hope is a subtle Glutton" by Emily Dickinson (1896)
Hope is a common theme in Dickinson’s work. There are 14 poems attributed to Dickinson that refer to “hope” in the first line, and there are three among those that use the same opening construction as “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers.” This poem, “Hope is a subtle Glutton,” is believed to be written much later in Dickinson’s life, and it takes a much darker view of hope. Instead of the “little Bird” (Line 7) in “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers,” this poem describes hope as a “Glutton” (Line 1) that perpetually “feeds upon the Fair” (Line 2). Like most of Dickinson’s poetry, there is a multitude of possible interpretations to this poem. However, the characterization of hope in this poem is much more pessimistic than in her earlier work.
"Hope is a strange invention" by Emily Dickinson (1955)
“Hope is a strange invention” is another of Dickinson’s three poems that start with the construction “Hope is.” While this work was not published until 1955, it is believed to be written between “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers” and “Hope is a subtle Glutton.” “Hope is a strange invention” does not have the pessimism of “Hope is a subtle Glutton,” nor the optimism of “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers.” This middle poem declares that “Not anything is known” (Line 6) of hope, but that it has a “unique momentum” (Line 7). Like the opening of “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers,” this poem seems to be frustrated in its attempts to define hope. Unlike the earlier poem, “Hope is a strange invention” does not find a satisfactory or comforting definition.
"Second Duino Elegy" by Rainer Maria Rilke (1922)
Rilke’s collection, “Duino Elegies,” is full of atypical representations of Christian imagery. The poems deal explicitly with topics like angels and salvation, but they do not follow traditional Christian interpretations of these things. However, in the “Second Elegy,” Rilke draws from the same history of analogy between angels and birds as Dickinson does in “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers.” In this poem, he refers to angels as “Vögel der Seele,” which the translator Stephen Mitchell interprets as “birds of the soul.” This phrase mirrors the first two lines of Dickinson’s poem and reinforces the idea that Dickinson’s speaker is envisioning an angel. While it is not clear whether Rilke read Dickinson, they share many similarities in their subject matter, intensity, and introspection.
"Psalm 42:11" from the Book of Psalms
Dickinson’s poetry is influenced by the forms of biblical verse. This influence is perhaps most clear when comparing her work to the Book of Psalms in the Old Testament. The book is a collection of 150 Hebrew religious songs. Dickinson would have likely read the Book of Psalms in school or under the influence of the Amherst religious revival. This section of the book focuses on hope in a similar way to “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers.”
Further Literary Resources
Society and Solitude by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870)
Dickinson thought highly of the American Transcendentalists like Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Not only did Transcendentalist books populate her library, Dickinson lived a non-conformist lifestyle on principles that aligned with Transcendentalist philosophies of self-reliance, natural beauty, and simple living. Emerson’s book-length essay, Society and Solitude, deals with many of these ideas that inform Dickinson’s life and work. Though this work was published near the end of Dickinson’s life, it is perhaps the one that resonates the most with her work. It also contains the line “You must hear the birds song without attempting to render it into nouns and verbs,” which mirrors the sentiment in the third line of Dickinson’s poem.
"Emily Dickinson's Letters" by Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1891)
Higginson was an American Unitarian minister and author with whom Dickinson corresponded throughout her life. Higginson wrote “Emily Dickinson’s Letters” in response to her growing posthumous fame and the popular desire to know more about her. This article, published five years after Dickinson’s death, recounts Higginson’s experience of Dickinson—both as a self-styled “literary counselor” and as a friend struggling to do justice to the recently deceased Dickinson. This article is a key account of Dickinson’s life from one of her friends and contemporaries.
"Emily Dickinson 101" by The Editors of Poetry (2015)
Dickinson is one of the most unique and mystifying poets in the American canon. This article, assembled by the editors of Poetry magazine, gives a brief but detailed overview of Dickinson’s life and works and how it relates to American poetry more broadly.
Listen to Poem
English stage and screen actor Juliet Stevenson recites “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers.” Notice how she engages with Dickinson’s dashes and how her interpretation of them informs the poem.
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By Emily Dickinson
