Analysis of The Poem “I Never Saw a Moor” by Emily Dickinson Based on Its Intrinsic Value

I Never Saw a Moor

By Emily Dickinson

I never saw a moor

I never see the sea

Yet know I how the heather looks

And what a wave must be

I never spoke with God

Nor visited in heaven

Yet certain am I of the spot

As if the chart were given

This poem tells about someone who never saw a moor and the sea. But she knew how the heather grows and looks. She also knew the condition in the sea, how the wave forces the corals. Without having experience to see them directly,  she used her imagination and she believed that they were exist. Even she can imagine them deeper by visualizing the heather and wave there.

About the God and heaven, she never spoke with God because she never saw God and she never visited the heaven too. But by her faith, she believed that God exists and she can communicate with Him in her prayer. She felt that she is of the spot where God is. She believed if God nears her. She also believed that the heaven exists, as if she was given by God the chart where the heaven is. By her faith, she believed that God as a creator of life and heaven as an eternal life are real.

When analyzing the poem, we have to find out the elements of poems. There are 9 elements which can be divided into two entities those are:

1.         The nature of the poem

·      Sense or theme

The religious belief of the God and the day after death.

·      Tone

The tone is serious. The poet makes the readers interest to the subject, the poet invites the readers to the situation where the readers remember the God and the day after death.

·      Feeling

The poet believed that God and heaven are real. Based on her experience, she saw her sister’s death and she felt that she will die like her sister. It made her belief of God and the day after life stonger. She is also familiar with Bible so she is a religious woman. She did not leave her house after age 26. So it was possible if she never saw a moor and the sea in her life.

·      Intention

The poet gives the readers information and try to make the readers believe that God and heaven are real.

2.         The method of writing the poem

·      Rhythm and rhyme

This poem has 8 lines and 2 verses. Its rhyme is  abcb defe.

·      Diction

The poet uses the daily words but it makes a poetic sense, like on the lines 5 and 7: I never spoke with God, yet certain am I on the spot.

·      Concrete of word

This poem is short and all the words use the strong and real words.

·      Imagery

The poet makes a relation between the God and nature (as his creation). The poet uses her mental picture to imagine how the heather looks and what a wave must be although she never saw a moor and the sea.

·      Figure of speech

The poem uses a simile, a figure of speech in which two fundamentally unlike things are explicitly compared. The poet compared the nature and God. She never saw a moor and the sea. She also never spoke with God nor visited in heaven. But without having experience she believed that God and heaven are just as real as the moors and waves.