Dickinson’s Ear

Abstract

Quatrain one and its Conscious Ear evoke an inner voice of thought and feeling "that's audible" (l.3) and "That is admitted-Here-" (l.4), inside the lyric speaker. With Dickinson's signature resonance, the threefold rhyme of Ear, Hear, Here (ll.1, 2, 4) places the voice and its hearing inside the speaker, and the poem's inclusive We, only found in quatrain one, also makes this evident: "We actually Hear" (l.2) what is within "When We Dickinson's Ear