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Emily DickinsonA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Hope, which can be both a noun and a verb, refers to a desire or an expectation. To “hope” for something means to anticipate something that one desires. Hope, according to the poem’s third-person speaker, is a “strange invention” (Line 1). An “invention” typically refers to something man-made or constructed, something that isn’t naturally occurring. “Strange” refers to something peculiar that is different from what is expected. According to our speaker, therefore, hope is a rather unusual, odd, unnatural fabrication.
Hope is referred to as a “Patent” in Line 2. The contemporary understanding of a “patent” is documentation protecting the proprietary rights to an invention, trademark, brand, or other property. However, the Oxford English Dictionary traces the usage of this word back to 1387–1395 with Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. In this respect, “patent” refers to a document conferring a right or privilege. Figuratively, the Oxford English Dictionary also states that “patent” could refer to a “quality or tendency that is characteristic of someone in particular” (“patent.” Oxford English Dictionary, 2022). When the speaker notes that the abstract notion of hope is specifically “A Patent of the Heart” (Line 2), they mean that hope is an attribute or characteristic specifically associated with this part of the body.
By Emily Dickinson
A Bird, came down the Walk
Emily Dickinson
A Clock stopped—
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A narrow Fellow in the Grass (1096)
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Because I Could Not Stop for Death
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"Faith" is a fine invention
Emily Dickinson
Fame Is a Fickle Food (1702)
Emily Dickinson
"Hope" Is the Thing with Feathers
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I Can Wade Grief
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I Felt a Cleaving in my Mind
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I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain
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If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking
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If I should die
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If you were coming in the fall
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I heard a Fly buzz — when I died
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I'm Nobody! Who Are You?
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Much Madness is divinest Sense—
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Success Is Counted Sweetest
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Tell all the truth but tell it slant
Emily Dickinson
The Only News I Know
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There is no Frigate like a Book
Emily Dickinson