Tarquin and Lucretia

According to Roman history, the rape of the virtuous matron Lucretia by Tarquin, son of the Roman king, incited the people to overthrow the monarchy and establish a republic around 510 BCE. Lucretia was hailed as a hero for subsequently committing suicide in an attempt to avoid any perceived dishonor to her family. Tintoretto depicted one of the most violent moments of the story with his characteristic expressive distortions of anatomy and space and vibrant treatment of light: As Tarquin and Lucretia struggle, a pillow flies through the air, her pearl necklace breaks apart, and the fabric and carved posts of the bed’s canopy collapse around them.

Background drawn from Art Institute of Chicago

Emily Dickinson published almost nothing during her lifetime and was largely unknown as a poet; only after her death did her work come to be regarded as canonical. The Poetry Foundation credits her with creating "a distinctively elliptical language for expressing what was possible but not yet realized," a quality visible even in a poem as brief as this one.

"Not at Home to Callers" is a four-line piece that treats a bare winter tree as a person declining visitors. The tree announces it is "Not at Home to Callers," promises a "Bonnet due in April" — its spring foliage — and politely dismisses the visitor with "Wishing you Good Day." The conceit turns the social language of paying calls into a way of describing seasonal dormancy.

The poem's compression, its use of dashes, and its personification of the natural world are characteristic of Dickinson's method, packing a full scene into a handful of words.

Background drawn from PoetryDB & Wikipedia