DDCPoetry

 Poem Found Here:  "The Soul Selects Her Own Society" by Emily Dickenson The version I have probably isn't the version she wrote.  I see this version out there which has the end dashes in place.  I'm going to go off the one I've read and wrote some notes about.  I just wonder who interpreted the punctuation this way since it does make a difference.  Bluntly put, the consistent usage of the semi-colon to connect couplets within the quatrains makes it so the lines are connected; however, this might not be the case with the end dashes.  It's too late for me though.  I can't unsee the way I see the poem. "The soul selects her own society, / Then shuts the door;"  Within two lines, there's an openness with the soul choosing and then the closing seems more of a protection and ownership ideal. The next two lines state the reason why, "On her divine majority / Obtrude no more."  The lines cast an ideal: devotion, loyalty, ownership of what...

Original poem reprinted online here: "342 It will be Summer -- eventually."  by Emily Dickinson Originally read: April 7, 2013 More information about the Poet: Emily Dickinson Yes, in Emily Dickinson poems the dashes sort of take over  the poem visually, and, since there is a lack of other punctuation in the poem (with the exception of the comma in the first line), there's an assumption that the dashes work as pauses.  I'm not too sure though as I keep reading this poem.  Maybe the dashes will be a discussion for another day. But they do create pauses in interesting places though -- the dashes I mean.  For example, in the first stanza where the speaker is defining summer by the way people act, first there's the dash between "Ladies" and "with parasols" as thought there's a distinction between both; however, there are "Sauntering Gentlemen" and "with canes", and "little girls" and "with Dolls."  These ...