Question

Which stanza structure does Emily Dickinson use in this excerpt from “Hope Is the Thing with Feathers”?

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

Answer 1

These two stanzas are quatrains which means that they are stanzas with 4 verses. The verses' meter alternates between a tetrameter and a trimeter, starting with a tetrameter.  The second stanza also rhymes with an ABAB pattern.

Answer 2

• In this excerpt Emily Dickinson uses quatrain stanza structure.

Step-by-step explanation:

In this literary device each stanza has exactly 4 lines. Lines in quatrain can be any length and with any meter, yet there is typically a customary beat to the lines too. There are instances of quatrains from Ancient Greece and China to Renaissance England and Iran to contemporary writing.