Emily Dickinson, wow....

The most obvious thing that stands out about both poems is the style Dickinson employs. Both, at first read, do not seem to make a great deal of stylistic sense but several readings make some of Dickinson's stlyistic choices more clear. In "Revolution is the Pod", one thing that I immediately noticed was the seemingly random word capitalization. However, it seems more likely that Dickinson deliberately capitalized these words because she wanted them to stand out as opposed to wanting to just be different from other poets. The overall message of the poem seems to be that revolution is a good thing and as far as the Civil War goes, it is not completely clear wether she supports the South's revolution or more of abolitionish revolution. The words she chooses to capitalize, "Revolution", "Pod", "Liberty", etc... are evidence that she wants the reader to focus on these words and I thnk help the reader along with getting to Dickinson's central message. The last stanza almost sounds like a challenge from Dickinson to those whom revolution seeks to affect. Specifically, the last two lines make it sound like the author is saying that revolution tests wether people are truly serious about what they believe in, because things can get stagnant and their passion can wain over time.

The other poem has a similar rhyme scheme and meter to "Revolution is the Pod" but it is stylistically different because it makes heavy use of dashes, which is an interesting choice by Dickinson. The dashes appear to mark places of longer than normal pause more than simply substituting for a comma or period. When reading the poem with steady, longer pauses, it almost sounds like a chant to a certain degree. The poem itself seems to have a somewhat somber tone which is to be expected due to the fact that it is describing blood spilling and raining down on people. When taken together, the poems offer seemingly conflicting views if considering the Civil War. On the one hand, "Revolution is the Pod" suggests that revolution can be a good thing. However, "The name--of it--is Autumn" gives depressing imagery of blood forming pools and forming "sprinkling Bonnets". The latter certainly would not be considered pro war so it is not completely clear what Dickinson's view of the Civil War really is.