Emily Brontë Literary Devices

The thing that distinguishes humans as higher-intellectual beings is their capacity to exude emotions. As fate would have it, when the Romantic era in poetry came around in the 1700’s; and ended with the death of Lord Byron in 1824, emotions would become a defining characteristic of the works during that era, along with nature, spirituality, etc.(Shmoop Editorial Team 2008)). Subsequently, Victorian poetry began in the mid 1800’s, during the reign of Queen Victoria of England, with the core characteristics of the poetry in its era being skepticism, whimsical nonsense, and embellished wording (Poetry Foundation 2018). It just so happens that the writings of British author and poet Emily Brontë fall into the timeline of both eras. Although her

She does so within the first two lines of the poem by repeating the word “far” (Brontë 2). This repetition emphasizes the fact that the speaker’s lover is not with her, and will never be with her again, a thought that can evoke feelings of suffering. She personifies her thoughts, which are always on her lover, as, “Resting their wings” (Brontë 7). This image of her thoughts as having wings could also be an allusion to angels and shows that her mind is constantly thinking about the death of her beloved, so much so that her thoughts need to rest. Constantly thinking about the death of a loved one must cause extreme anguish and suffering. Brontë also uses caesura in lines one and nine (Brontë 1 & 9). Caesura makes the reader take pause during the poem, literally and figuratively, and really feel the hurt and despair of the speaker, and how long she has been suffering, an emotion that is seen in Romantic era pieces. In stanza 6, the speaker experiences an epiphany; she realizes that she should cherish the time she had with her lover and not live in suffering anymore (Brontë 23-24). The use of a turning point in the poem allows Brontë to have two separate moods in one poem; to have two strong emotions be the core of her poem. She also uses a rhyme scheme of ABAB throughout the entirety of the poem. This consistency of the rhyme evokes the idea that the love between the speaker and

The Romantic era may be over and considered outdated, but its principles will always emanate with people because they are drawn to things that explain the emotions that they too feel but were not able to voice