Poetry Hacks

Dash

What is it? A horizontal line in a sentence that is longer than a hyphen.

What effect does it usually have? Dashes tend to convey a sense of energy or spontaneity; in different situations they can also be used (like the ellipsis) to add a pause or silence, conveying the idea that the speaker has trailed off, lost in thought, or (in dialogue) that the speaker has been interrupted. What else should I look out for? Faltering speech and breathless excitement is effectively conveyed using dashes. They are also used to create a more speech-like, informal style, and may be used as a relaxed alternative to other punctuation (especially the colon, or the pair of commas around a subclause).

An example of how it wo rks … ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ by John Keats:

Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music: — Do I wake or sleep?

The dash in the last line of the poem helps to convey the poet’s sense of bewilderment as he emerges from the reverie of his poetic vision.

Another example … ‘The Secret’ by Emily Dickinson:

The skies can't keep their secret! They tell it to the hills — The hills just tell the orchards — And they the daffodils!

The dashes used here are used as a more energetic alternative to commas, conveying the speaker's joyous response to the 'new-fashioned world' after the snows have melted.

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