Indeed, expressing her own failure to emulate and to equal the language of nature, Dickinson indicates a profound reverence towards it but at the same time her feeling of inadequacy masks a deeper awareness of certain truths and meanings, precious like jewels, and of the fact that her high form of expression can hide them: the metaphor "Depths of Ruby" links, as in other poems, jewels with flowers (thus, with poems), in whose deep cup are concealed the precious and "undrained" depths. "That certain truths must remain unspoken is a roundabout way of saying that one know...

• Word Count: 2619
• Approx Pages: 10
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

In The Truth of Ecology (2003), Dana Phillips critiques ecocriticism for the problematic separation of the literal and the literary; Phillips reminds us that texts written or read from an ecological perspective may well be literal (or descriptive or realistic or naturalistic) in mode but can't avoid being literary in medium. ...

• Word Count: 9971
• Approx Pages: 40
• Grade Level: Undergraduate