FREE ESSAY ON DICKINSON AND HUGHES: A COMPARISON

DICKINSON AND HUGHES: A COMPARISON

Emily Camberg
Reading Poetry 124L
Paper One
11/8/99
After reading both "Tell All the Truth but Tell It Slant" by Emily Dickinson and "Harlem"
by Langston Hughes, I determined that the main difference between the two poems is both
poets' use of diction. Dickinson makes use of abstract diction in her poem, using words
like bright, delight, superb, and dazzle. Using the word "truth" in itself is an enormous
abstraction. Hughes, however, uses more concrete diction, with words such as raisin,
fester, sore, meat, and load. These are actual, physical things that exist. I see this as
the most significant difference between the two poems.
At first glance, Dickinson's poem made no sense to me. I then, however, tore it apart and
came up with the following explication. Line one basically states "tell me the whole
truth, but don't be so direct. Don't just come out and say it." In line two, when the
speaker refers to a circuit, she is most likely comparing the way they tell the truth to
the way circuits wind their way around a room, mostly hidden, but getting their job done.
Lines three and four are saying the direct truth may be too much to handle, such as the
sun may be too bright to look at directly. Lines five and six are telling this person to
explain the truth like one might explain lightning to a child, with a kind, soothing tone
of voice that's easy to understand. Lines seven and eight say that the truth must come a
little at a time, or gradually, so that it may leave us in some suspense, rather than
hitting us all at once and leaving us unable to comprehend the whole truth for what it
is.
Dickinson's use of alliteration shows in the poem, especially in lines one, two, four,
and seven, where she uses words in pairs, such as tell, truth, success, circuit, the,
truth, superb, and surprise. The author also uses an a b c b rime scheme.
Langston Hughes's poem "Harlem" was bit easier to explicate because of his use of
concrete diction. The first line is simply an introduction into the poem, which in itself
is a pondering of what happens to a dream when it must be postponed or put off. The main
body of the poem goes into detail about what happens to the dream. Does it dry up like a
raisin in the sun? Fester like a sore? The whole poem is basically a simile. The author
compares this deferred dream to a dried up raisin, a festering sore, rotten meat, syrupy
sweetness that's crusty and sugary, a heavy load that just sags, and finally, does it
just explode? He uses very good imagery, and I'm almost able to see this dream being put
off, forgotten about, or deteriorating.
Both authors, although using completely different methods, come across very clearly with
their main point. While Dickinson is abstract, and Hughes is more concrete with his
diction, they both use considerable similes, Hughes more than Dickinson. For example,
Hughes uses similes in almost every line of his poem. Dickinson uses only a few, such as
"as lightning to the children". Dickinson also uses personification, in saying that the
truth must dazzle gradually, or using the phrase "the Truth's superb surprise", referring
to the truth as a proper noun, giving it human characteristics.
The tone of Dickinson's poem differs from that of Hughes's poem in the sense that
Hughes's poem is inquisitive, while Dickinson's is more commanding. The speaker of "Tell
all the Truth..." is saying exactly that- tell all the truth but tell it slant, while the
speaker in "Harlem" is more contemplative, asking what happens to a dream deferred.
The imagery of both poems leaves me with solid pictures in my mind. In "Tell All The
Truth..." the Truth takes on this certain aura, where you feel that experiencing it would
be something wonderful, and it would dazzle you to no end. Also, as mentioned above,
"Harlem" creates the picture of a dream deteriorating, in one way or another. Hughes's
use of language easily put these images in front of us for us to see.
Bibliography
Kennedy, X.J. and Gioia, Dana. An Introduction to Poetry. 9th ed. New York: Harper
Collins, 1994.