Northfrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism as applied to Dickinson's poem #465 (I Heard a Fly Buzz)

Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism illustrates that literature without a narrative can still be classified according to his various modes. By assessing the world of the speaker, you can learn the speaker's situation and assess which mode the speaker is classified in. This is true of Emily Dickinson's poem number 465. Dickinson, although never actively speaking in the poem, describes in a lyric voice her own last link between consciousness and death. Using metaphor and wording …

…poem has no specific hero to deal with, the setting and imagery throughout the poem give enough evidence towards the meanings within the poem. By applying Frye's principals, the poem can be clarified. Frye is especially helpful in this sort of lyric poem- full of non specific meaning, as it gives us a guideline by which we can use opposing imagery and a basis of myth to explain words that at face value, are ambiguous.