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In Emily Dickinson’s poem, “Wild Nights—Wild Nights!”, the reader does not know who
the narrator is longing for in this poem, but the erotic overtone suggests a passionate love
between them. She uses various techniques such as the capitalization of certain words,
dashes, and figurative language to achieve the connection between elements of nature to
the ideas of human experience. It is also important to keep in mind that Dickinson may not
be talking about herself and her own desires.
In the first stanza, the speaker expresses a sense of longing. The phrase “wild nights”
suggests a sensual mood for the poem. Dickinson uses dashes to create a pause between
words; the dash along with the repetition of the phrase, “Wild nights” in the first line
create a feeling of looking back on something and longing to revisit it. The speaker is
yearning to relive something about those “wild nights”, which conveys a sense of mystery
and curiosity to the reader. The audience gets introduced to “thee” in the second line,
which is synonymous to “you”. It is unclear who “thee” is, but it is clear to the reader that
“thee” is someone that the speaker wishes to spend more “wild nights” with. The speaker
states that “wild nights should be our luxury!” in the last two lines of the stanza. These
wild nights are not a luxury that is easily accessible to the speaker, which leads the
audience to believe that there must be a barrier between the narrator and “thee”. This
