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  • Essay / Publication is the Auction: Literary Interpretation

    Dickinson's poem “Publication – is the Auction” deals with the speaker's disdain for the publication of an author's works. The speaker seems to view the act of publishing a work as an act of short selling, compromising its purity and integrity. In the first line, the speaker expresses the impersonality of the publication by comparing it to an auction, something detached and pragmatic. The speaker goes on to say that the only acceptable reason to publish a work is if the author is struggling with poverty and needs to publish to survive. Then the speaker brings in her personal experience by stating that she prefers to go white because she stays in her attic and, presumably, by writing poetry that will never be seen. The speaker also incorporates the concept of a higher being as the creator of thoughts. This higher being then transmits his thoughts to the writer, or “He who wears / It is a corporeal illustration” (10-11). The image of a poem being able to be bought and sold like a commodity continues throughout the poem. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay Many words in this poem have more than one meaning and function in more than one way. The word "publish" is used to refer to both commercialization (that is, publishing books for sale) and the non-commercial release of something to the public. The definition of the word "auction" is also interesting, as it mentions that the item being auctioned off will go to the highest bidder. This definition implies that not only does the object only have monetary value, but the monetary value is almost arbitrary. To say that posting is like an auction is to say that the reason for posting is not even to share something, but simply to make as much profit as possible. Many other words, such as "parcel", "merchant" and "price", create a very professional and cold image. The poem gives no indication that the speaker is anyone other than Dickinson herself. The context of the poem is simply that of a single speaker expressing their feelings about writing and publishing. His attitude and the tone of the poem are passionate, assertive but non-threatening. She is angry at the very concept of publication and what it does to a person. The diction is a few steps above ordinary speech, but it is not complicated. The ease of diction allows the reader to better understand the meaning of the poem. This is also an example of the message of the poem; the diction, like the author, does not take airs. The open form of this poem made chanting more difficult. There is a clear rhyme scheme and some classic poetic devices are present, but these aspects are not entirely brought together in a familiar way. The first stanza is composed of two pairs of rhyming couplets, in which the first rhyming couplet consists of two lines ending in a close rhyme with the words "auction" and "man", thus creating an "aabb" rhyming pattern. The remaining three stanzas are quatrains with various rhyme schemes and rhythms. The second stanza has a much more obvious rhyme scheme of “cdcd”. In the third stanza, the rhyme scheme is broken, with an "efge" pattern. This variation of the common rhyme scheme shocks the reader. The last stanza has the same rhyme scheme as the second, with a "hihi" motif. The dominant foot of the poem is trochaic, the actual meter varying from one line to another. The first line of each stanza is clearly a trochaic tetrameter. The fact that the beginning of each stanza..