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Emily DickinsonA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
“I heard a Fly Buzz — When I died” is a narrative poem broken into four quatrains (a stanza made of four lines) that takes the reader through the speaker’s progressing death and increasing disconnect from knowledge and self-autonomy.
The poem begins using a simple past tense, declarative sentence in the indicative grammatical mood—”I heard a Fly Buzz — When I died” (Line 1). The use of a declarative sentence form and the indicative mood sets the speaker hearing a fly at the time of her death as hard fact. The simple past tense of “heard” gives the statement both a definitive timeframe (“when I died”) and a sense of closure of the actions (Line 1). The subject detects the direct object as the direct object acts. This grammatical construction makes the reader trust the speaker to possess objectivity and clarity about her death. Dickinson supports the image of a level-headed speaker with the poem’s form. The four lines and four stanzas create the illusion of balance, steadiness, and preparedness.
Dickinson continues using the indicative mood through the following 15 lines as she presents the speaker’s observations about the speaker’s dying room and mourners.
By Emily Dickinson
A Bird, came down the Walk
Emily Dickinson
A Clock stopped—
Emily Dickinson
A narrow Fellow in the Grass (1096)
Emily Dickinson
Because I Could Not Stop for Death
Emily Dickinson
"Faith" is a fine invention
Emily Dickinson
Fame Is a Fickle Food (1702)
Emily Dickinson
Hope is a strange invention
Emily Dickinson
"Hope" Is the Thing with Feathers
Emily Dickinson
I Can Wade Grief
Emily Dickinson
I Felt a Cleaving in my Mind
Emily Dickinson
I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain
Emily Dickinson
If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking
Emily Dickinson
If I should die
Emily Dickinson
If you were coming in the fall
Emily Dickinson
I'm Nobody! Who Are You?
Emily Dickinson
Much Madness is divinest Sense—
Emily Dickinson
Success Is Counted Sweetest
Emily Dickinson
Tell all the truth but tell it slant
Emily Dickinson
The Only News I Know
Emily Dickinson
There is no Frigate like a Book
Emily Dickinson