Matthew Martinez
Kara Thompson
English 3
7 January 2009
Analysis Paper 1: Wild Nights—Wild Nights! By Emily Dickinson
From reading Emily Dickinson’s poem I get the images that she, the narrator or whom ever is speaking in the poem is stranded at sea or at least on a vessel somewhere in the middle of the ocean and is having trouble getting back to port. The narrator is also longing to be with a loved one somewhere, possibly back at port and wants to make wild love to this particular person. I can explain this by breaking down each stanza one at a time.
In the first stanza, the narrator begins by asking for a “wild night” with someone and if they were together at the moment it would be a great time or “luxury”. The second stanza explains to me that the narrator is on a ship because he or she says that the winds are futile and his “heart” is at port. I believe the “heart” at port is the loved one that narrator wishes to be with again. Then the narrator says that he or she is “done” with there compass and chart possibly because they are no help and this is also good evidence to give me reason to believe the narrator is lost or stranded. Finally in the third stanza, I can visualize the narrator thinking about or dreaming of making love to their special someone in the garden of Eden if it were not for the sea. “Might I but moor—Tonight—In thee!” Moor means to fasten, attach, connect, etc. Maybe the narrator just wants to hang out with this person, but the “In thee!” part sparks more images for my male mind. There could or not be a sexual significance about the word “In”, but sex is the idea I get from the third stanza.
As for the phrase “Wild Nights—Wild Nights!”, I can back up my theory of sex with the term. How else would someone be able to have a wild night in thee? But I also question myself when I get to the second stanza and come up with possible new images to the poem. Could it possibly be a wild night at sea? Is there a storm going on...