The Literature Network - Dickinson's Portraits are to daily faces.(poet Emily Dickinson)(Critical Essay)

Dickinson's Portraits are to daily faces.(poet Emily Dickinson)(Critical Essay)

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From: The Explicator
Date: 20020622
Author:Frank, Bernhard

Portraits are to daily faces 
As an Evening West, 
To a fine, pedantic sunshine-- 
In a satin Vest! *

A reader coming across Emily Dickinson's ever so brief "Presentiment is that long Shadow" is immediately struck by a buzz of symbols reverberating like a magnetic field about its few lines. An equally brief piece that appears deceptively simple, however, may also be "a loaded gun" packed with meaning. "Portraits are to daily faces" is such a poem--a rosebud masquerading as a shy violet.

On its surface it could be just another of Dickinson's "cute" pieces--a charming flash ...

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