LitCharts (2024)

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Emily Dickinson's "Fame is a fickle food" presents celebrity as something volatile and unpredictable. Getting a taste of this metaphorical food one day is no guarantee that you'll get it the next. Even unscrupulous scavengers like "crows" steer clear of fame's dubious "crumbs," the speaker says, preferring the humble yet reliable nutrition of "Farmer's corn." Like most of Dickinson's poems, "Fame is a fickle food" was discovered after her death and published in the posthumous 1924 collection, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson.

• Read the full text of “Fame is a fickle food”

• “Fame is a fickle food” Summary

• “Fame is a fickle food” Themes

  • 

    The Fleeting, Unreliable Nature of Fame

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• Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Fame is a fickle food”

  • Lines 1-2

    Fame is a fickle food
    Upon a shifting plate

  • Lines 3-5

    Whose table once a
    Guest but not
    The second time is set

  • Lines 6-7

    Whose crumbs the crows inspect
    And with ironic caw

  • Lines 8-9

    Flap past it to the
    Farmer’s corn

  • Line 10

    Men eat of it and die

• “Fame is a fickle food” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

  • Alliteration

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  • Consonance

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  • Assonance

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  • Extended Metaphor

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  • Enjambment

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  • Personification

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• “Fame is a fickle food” Vocabulary

  Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

  • Fickle
  • Shifting plate
  • Ironic
  • Caw
  • • See where this vocabulary word appearsin the poem.

• Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Fame is a fickle food”

  • Form

  • Meter

  • Rhyme Scheme

• “Fame is a fickle food” Speaker

• “Fame is a fickle food” Setting

• Literary and Historical Context of “Fame is a fickle food”

• More “Fame is a fickle food” Resources

  • External Resources

    • A Look at Dickinson's Life — A Poetry Foundation biography of one of the world's most beloved, and mysterious, poets.

    • Dickinson's Personal Thoughts on Publication and Fame— A letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson in which Dickinson famouslysays, "If fame belonged to me, I could not escape her."

    • The Emily Dickinson Museum— An online database of precious artifacts from Emily Dickinson's lifetime.

    • The Poem in Dickinson's Handwriting— An archive of the original, handwritten poem.

  • LitCharts on Other Poems by Emily Dickinson

    • A Bird, came down the Walk

    • After great pain, a formal feeling comes –

    • A Light exists in Spring

    • A Murmur in the Trees—to note—

    • A narrow Fellow in the Grass

    • An awful Tempest mashed the air—

    • As imperceptibly as grief

    • A still—Volcano—Life—

    • Because I could not stop for Death —

    • Before I got my eye put out

    • Hope is the thing with feathers

    • I cannot live with You –

    • I cautious, scanned my little life

    • I could bring You Jewels—had I a mind to—

    • I did not reach Thee

    • I died for Beauty—but was scarce

    • I dreaded that first Robin, so

    • I dwell in Possibility –

    • I felt a Funeral, in my Brain

    • If I can stop one heart from breaking

    • I had been hungry, all the Years

    • I have a Bird in spring

    • I heard a Fly buzz - when I died -

    • I like a look of Agony

    • I like to see it lap the Miles

    • I measure every Grief I meet

    • I’m Nobody! Who are you?

    • I started Early — Took my Dog —

    • I taste a liquor never brewed

    • It was not Death, for I stood up

    • I—Years—had been—from Home—

    • Like Rain it sounded till it curved

    • Much Madness is divinest Sense -

    • My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun

    • Nature is what we see

    • One need not be a Chamber — to be Haunted

    • Publication — is the Auction

    • Safe in their Alabaster Chambers

    • Shipwreck

    • Success is counted sweetest

    • Tell all the truth but tell it slant —

    • The Brain—is wider than the Sky—

    • The Bustle in a House

    • The Mushroom is the Elf of Plants

    • There came a Wind like a Bugle

    • There is no Frigate like a Book

    • There's a certain Slant of light

    • There's been a Death, in the Opposite House

    • The saddest noise, the sweetest noise

    • The Sky is low — the Clouds are mean

    • The Soul has bandaged moments

    • The Soul selects her own Society

    • The Wind – tapped like a tired Man –

    • They shut me up in Prose –

    • This is my letter to the world

    • This World is not Conclusion

    • 'Twas the old—road—through pain—

    • We grow accustomed to the Dark

    • What mystery pervades a well!

    • Whose cheek is this?

    • Wild nights - Wild nights!