Blog #8 assignment: Poems

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant

Emily Dickinson

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant---
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightening to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind---

The poem “Tell all the Truth but tell it slant” by Emily Dickinson could be used reader-response criticism to analyze it. Reader-response criticism attempts to describe what happens in the reader’s mind while interpreting a text. When I first looked at the poem, I came up with some experience from my real life. I realized that the poem was talking about what the smart way is to tell the truth so that people who would hear the truth could not be shocked by the truth and easier accept the truth.

Depending on the poem, it could be interpreted in a way like that: To tell the outright truth is too much for people to handle. Surprising someone with the truth is like a child seeing lightning for the first time and trying to explain to them why it is the way it is. The truth has to be gradually told or the person or people that the truth is being told to will be shocked. So to 'slant' the truth isn't to tell a lie but to tell the truth little by little.

The poem is short but it shows how the “tell it slant” is working for by using an example of “As Lightening to the Children.” When children first see lighting they are shocked by it and it must be explained “Gradually” as same as “slowly”. You will not want to tell a child right that the lightening is fast moving electron particles that are created by hot and cold air moving together or something like that. The children would not understand. Also, when you are explaining right away that the lightning is dangerous and may cause damage, children will be scared by what you are saying to them. As a result, we have to teach children slowly about lightning and as they grow up they will understand what lightning is.

Though it is a short poem, there are key phrases which make us to think and image this poem. “Circuit lie” does not mean to lie instead means “slant” which is an indirectly way to tell the truth. Because we humans have "infirm Delight," we are incapable of understanding all the truth at once. “Explanation kind” and “dazzle gradually” shows us that we not only tell the truth slant but also can tell it step by step or little by little; both are good for dealing with the outright truth.