poetry essay the shipwreck

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Shipwreck by Emily Dickinson

Recorded Lesson

It tossed and tossed, — A little brig I knew, — O'ertook by blast, It spun and spun, And groped delirious, for morn.

It slipped and slipped, As one that drunken stepped; Its white foot tripped, Then dropped from sight.

Ah, brig, good-night To crew and you; The ocean's heart too smooth, too blue, To break for you.

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It tossed and tossed, — A little brig I knew, — O’ertook by blast, It spun and spun, And groped delirious, for morn.

It slipped and slipped, As one that drunken stepped; Its white foot tripped, Then dropped from sight.

Ah, brig, good-night To crew and you; The ocean’s heart too smooth, too blue, To break for you.

By Emily Dickinson

It tossed and tossed, — A little brig I knew, — O’ertook by blast, It spun and spun, And groped delirious, for morn.

It slipped and slipped, As one that drunken stepped; Its white foot tripped, Then dropped from sight.

Ah, brig, good-night To crew and you; The ocean’s heart too smooth, too blue, To break for you.

This Poem Features In:

• poems about ships

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It tossed and tossed,— A little brig I knew,— O’ertook by blast, It spun and spun, And groped delirious, for morn.

It slipped and slipped, As one that drunken stepped; Its white foot tripped, Then dropped from sight.

Ah, brig, goodnight To crew and you; The ocean’s heart too smooth, too blue, To break for you.

The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Series Two

By emily dickinson, life, poem 25: shipwreck.

• Year Published: 1896
• Language: English
• Country of Origin: United States of America
• Source: Dickenson, E. (1896). The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Series Two. Boston, MA: Roberts Brothers.
• Flesch–Kincaid Level: 6.6
• Word Count: 60
• Genre: Poetry
• Keywords: 19th century literature, american literature, emily dickinson, poems, poetry, series 1
• ✎ Cite This

Dickinson, E. (1896). Life, Poem 25: Shipwreck. The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Series Two (Lit2Go Edition). Retrieved May 21, 2024, from https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/115/the-poems-of-emily-dickinson-series-two/3694/life-poem-25-shipwreck/

Dickinson, Emily. "Life, Poem 25: Shipwreck." The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Series Two . Lit2Go Edition. 1896. Web. https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/115/the-poems-of-emily-dickinson-series-two/3694/life-poem-25-shipwreck/ >. May 21, 2024.

Emily Dickinson, "Life, Poem 25: Shipwreck," The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Series Two , Lit2Go Edition, (1896), accessed May 21, 2024, https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/115/the-poems-of-emily-dickinson-series-two/3694/life-poem-25-shipwreck/ .

It tossed and tossed, — A little brig I knew, — O'ertook by blast, It spun and spun, And groped delirious, for morn.

It slipped and slipped, As one that drunken stepped; Its white foot tripped, Then dropped from sight.

Ah, brig, good-night To crew and you; The ocean's heart too smooth, too blue, To break for you.

• Famous Poems about Shipwrecks: The Tragic Beauty of the Sea

The theme of shipwrecks has long captivated the imaginations of poets. The tumultuous and unpredictable nature of the sea, coupled with the inherent danger of maritime travel, offers a rich tapestry for poets to explore. Shipwreck poems often delve into themes of human vulnerability, the raw power of nature, and the fleeting fragility of life. In this article, we will explore three famous poems that beautifully capture the essence of shipwrecks.

"The Wreck of the Hesperus" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"the seafarer" – an old english elegy, "dover beach" by matthew arnold.

One of the most renowned shipwreck poems is "The Wreck of the Hesperus" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Published in 1842, this narrative poem tells the haunting tale of a brave skipper who, ignoring the storm warnings, embarks on a treacherous journey with his daughter. As the storm intensifies, the ship ultimately succumbs to the fury of the sea, leading to a tragic demise.

Longfellow's vivid descriptions and use of imagery bring the calamity to life, making readers feel the biting wind, the crashing waves, and the chilling suspense. The poem serves as a cautionary reminder of the consequences of human arrogance and the indomitable power of nature.

"He clasps the crag with crooked hands; Close to the sun in lonely lands, Ringed with the azure world, he stands. The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; He watches from his mountain walls, And like a thunderbolt he falls."

While not explicitly a shipwreck poem, "The Seafarer" is an Old English elegy that delves into the hardships and loneliness of a life at sea. Its anonymous author, believed to have written the poem around the 9th century, explores the existential journey of a mariner.

This elegy beautifully portrays the melancholic yearning for stability and a sense of belonging amid the vastness of the ocean. It reflects on the hardships faced by seafarers, their longing for home, and the eternal struggle between man and the elements. Although not specifically about shipwrecks, "The Seafarer" encapsulates the underlying dangers that lurk beneath the surface of every voyage.

"The sea took me, swept me back And forth in sorrow and fear and pain, Showed me suffering in a hundred ships, In a thousand ports. And now you are My heart's desire, my love, my hope."

While not explicitly centered on shipwrecks, "Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold masterfully employs the metaphor of a shipwreck to convey a sense of despair and loss. Published in 1867, this reflective poem explores themes of love, faith, and the erosion of traditional values.

Arnold's evocative language paints a picture of a world in decline, where the once-solid foundations of society are crumbling. The poem's final stanza, likening humanity to a shipwrecked world, leaves the reader with a profound sense of unease and melancholy.

"Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night."

Shipwreck poems offer a poignant reminder of the formidable power of nature and the vulnerability of human existence. Whether through the tragic tale of the Hesperus, the melancholic reflections of a mariner in "The Seafarer," or the metaphorical shipwreck in "Dover Beach," these poems tap into our deepest emotions and remind us of the tragic beauty found in the depths of the sea.

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A Brief History of Shipwrecks in Literature

Alan g. jamieson on why lost ships are so compelling to writers.

On August 14, 2020 the animal transport Gulf Livestock 1 departed Napier, New Zealand, bound for China. The Panamanian-registered vessel was carrying almost 6,000 live cattle and had a crew of 43: 39 men from the Philippines, including the captain, two from New Zealand and two from Australia.

On 2 September, when the ship was southwest of Japan, an emergency message was sent out. The engine had failed and the vessel was drifting in stormy seas caused by Typhoon Maysak. The Japanese coast guard responded and picked up two survivors, both Filipinos. They said the ship had been struck by a large wave and had capsized. The other 41 members of the crew had died, along with the cargo of cattle.

News items about this incident appeared on various media sites for a few days before it was forgotten. This recent shipwreck was one of so many across the centuries. The oldest known shipwreck, on the coast of Greece, is more than 4,000 years old, and UNESCO has estimated that there are more than 3 million shipwreck sites around the world. Shipwrecks have always been part of human experience, with the earliest account of a shipwreck, from ancient Egypt, being almost as old as the oldest known shipwreck.

The loss of the Gulf Livestock 1 fits the most popular image of a shipwreck, with a vessel being overpowered by the forces of nature in a storm at sea. Other conceptions involve ships being driven onto a rocky coast by stormy seas. Yet the best-known shipwreck, that of the Titanic in 1912, took place when the North Atlantic Ocean was almost calm; an iceberg was the cause, not stormy seas. There have been many types of shipwreck over the centuries, including ships that simply disappeared.

Even in the age of sail, when shipwrecks were much more common than they are today, most people had never been in a shipwreck or even seen one from the shore. Yet shipwrecks, like other types of disaster, were popular subjects for storytelling, and most people’s knowledge of disasters at sea came via such stories.

Shipwrecks feature in Homer’s Odyssey , written in the eighth century BCE, and St Paul’s shipwreck at Malta appears in the Bible, but shipwreck narratives as a literary genre only started in the sixteenth century CE when Portuguese survivors of shipwrecks produced pamphlets about their experiences, which found many readers. The non-fiction shipwreck narrative enjoyed its heyday from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, with Archibald Duncan’s six-volume anthology The Mariner’s Chronicle: Containing Narratives of the Most Remarkable Disasters at Sea (first volume 1804) being perhaps the greatest of them all. However, even in the late twentieth century stories such as Sebastian Junger’s book The Perfect Storm could achieve considerable popular success.

The dramatic nature of shipwrecks made them obvious targets for transformation into fictional literary forms. A number of William Shakespeare’s plays feature shipwrecks, most notably A Comedy of Errors (1594), Twelfth Night (1602) and The Tempest (1611). Shakespeare’s inspiration for the shipwreck in the last of these three is said to have been the story of the wreck of the Sea Venture in 1609.

The Sea Venture was part of a supply fleet on its way to the struggling English colony of Jamestown, Virginia, in North America. Encountering a storm while crossing the North Atlantic, the ship was wrecked on the island of Bermuda. The survivors managed to construct two smaller vessels from the shattered timbers of the Sea Venture and in 1610 they sailed on to Jamestown, only to find the colonists ready to evacuate the settlement. Fortunately, another supply fleet arrived and the colonists decided to continue with their new life in America. An account of the Sea Venture ’s wreck and subsequent events was published in London in 1611 and was probably known to Shakespeare when he wrote and presented The Tempest later that year.

After Shakespeare, the man who did most to bring the shipwreck into English literature was Daniel Defoe. Originally a London merchant, Defoe was swept up in the shipwreck-hunting mania that followed New Englander Captain Phips’s recovery of treasure from a sunken Spanish galleon in the Caribbean in 1687. Phips brought great wealth to himself and his backers in England. Many companies were set up to go on similar hunts for sunken treasure and Defoe invested in a diving-bell concerned with that aim, even becoming its treasurer. Like most such ventures this company achieved nothing; Defoe lost his money and was accused of financial irregularities.

This debacle was one of the reasons Defoe went bankrupt in 1692. To salvage his fortunes, he took up writing, producing both fiction and non-fiction. In 1703 a great storm swept across southern England and sank a dozen Royal Navy warships as well as forty merchant ships, with hundreds of sailors drowned. Defoe’s book The Storm (1704) was a detailed study of this disaster and was the first book to cover a national weather event.

Defoe’s fictional work Robinson Crusoe (1719) is regarded by many as the first English novel. It is a shipwreck—from which Crusoe is the only survivor—that begins the tale of his adventures as a castaway. The story of the Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk is usually taken to be the inspiration for Defoe’s work, and it is certainly true that the author’s account of Crusoe’s life on the island owes much to details of Selkirk’s time as a castaway. However, Selkirk was not shipwrecked.

After a dispute with the captain about the seaworthiness of his ship, Selkirk had asked to be put ashore on an island in the Juan Fernández group in the Pacific Ocean on South America in 1704. Only in 1709 was he rescued by a visiting British ship. Selkirk did at least have the satisfaction of learning that the ship he had left did later sink, and that only the captain and a few other men had survived. The fact that Selkirk was not shipwrecked has led some scholars to suggest the authors of various contemporary shipwreck narratives as possible alternative inspirations for Defoe’s castaway.

The success of Robinson Crusoe led to the popularity of shipwreck scenes in eighteenth-century literature. In Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726), Gulliver survives a shipwreck and once he has reached the shore he falls asleep. On waking he discovers that he has been tied to the ground by the tiny inhabitants of the land of Lilliput. In Candide (1759), Voltaire has his hero survive a shipwreck near Lisbon, Portugal, only to reach that port just in time for the great Lisbon earthquake of 1755, which he also survives.

Neither Swift nor Voltaire had any personal experience of shipwreck, but one of the first notable poems about a shipwreck was written by a sailor who had survived not one but two of them and would eventually be lost in a third. The Scottish mariner William Falconer served on both merchant ships and warships, with his first shipwreck taking place in one of the latter. In 1760 the warship HMS-Ramillies was wrecked on the south coast of Devon. Out of 850 men on board, only 27 survived, one of whom was Falconer. Returning to the merchant service, Falconer joined a ship called Britannia , which was active in the Levant trade.

On a voyage from Alexandria to Venice, the ship was wrecked on the coast of Greece, with Falconer one of only three survivors. With this latter wreck as his main inspiration, Falconer wrote the poem The Shipwreck (1762), which enjoyed considerable acclaim. After finishing his equally popular maritime dictionary in 1769, Falconer set out for India as a passenger in the frigate HMS-Aurora . The ship left Cape Town, South Africa, on 27 December 1769 and was never seen again. It was generally thought to have been lost in a storm in the Indian Ocean in January 1770. Falconer’s poem remained an inspiration for both writers and artists well into the nineteenth century.

One of the most famous French novels of the eighteenth century was Paul et Virginie (1788), written by Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. The titular young couple are brought up together on the island of Mauritius (then known as Ile de France) in the Indian Ocean and later fall in love. Eventually Virginie is forced to leave, and when she finally returns her ship is wrecked within sight of Mauritius, after which Paul finds her lifeless body washed up on the beach.

The author had spent some time in Mauritius and the inspiration for his shipwreck account is said to have been the loss of the French East Indiaman St Géran on the island in 1744, which only ten of the 267 people on board survived. The novel remained extremely popular throughout the nineteenth century and many artists portrayed the scene of Paul finding Virginie’s body on the beach.

Shipwrecks could impact more directly on the lives of writers, as in the case of the English poet William Wordsworth. His brother John was a captain in the service of the East India Company. In 1805 he set out on a voyage to India and China in his ship Earl of Abergavenny , but the voyage had hardly started when the ship was wrecked in a storm on the south coast of England. John Wordsworth was not among the survivors, and it has been claimed that grief over his brother’s death contributed to the declining quality of William Wordsworth’s later poems.

Family links to shipwreck are also found in the narrative poem Don Juan , which George Gordon, Lord Byron, began to publish in 1819. Byron’s grandfather, Admiral John Byron, had set out with Commodore Anson on his squadron’s voyage around the world in 1740 when he was a young midshipman. Unfortunately his ship, HMS-Wager , became separated after rounding Cape Horn and was wrecked on the coast of Chile. The shipwreck was followed by a mutiny among the surviving sailors, and young Byron was lucky to survive these events.

Eventually, in 1768, he published an account of his experiences that enjoyed some success with the reading public. Lord Byron used his grandfather’s account as inspiration for the shipwreck section of Don Juan , but the cannibalism in that section was drawn from other shipwreck narratives and not the story of the loss of the Wager .

Shipwrecks loom large in the works of the American writer Edgar Allan Poe, especially his short story “Ms. Found in a Bottle” (1833) and his novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1837). In the latter, Poe thought so much of one of his inspirations, the loss of the American brig Polly in 1811, that he outlined much of its story in a footnote. One of the most famous American poems about a shipwreck, The Wreck of the Hesperus (1840) by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, had its inspiration in the great blizzard that swept across New England in January 1839, sinking twenty ships with a loss of forty lives.

In Longfellow’s poem, a captain unwisely brings his daughter along on a winter voyage. One of his crew says a big storm is coming, but the captain ignores him. Soon the ship is being hit by stormy seas and the captain ties his daughter to a mast to stop her being washed overboard. The ship is eventually wrecked on Norman’s Woe, a reef near Cape Ann, Massachusetts, and all on board perish. The daughter is found still tied to the mast when it is washed ashore.

Longfellow’s direct inspiration was the Favorite , a vessel from Wiscasset, Maine, which was wrecked on Norman’s Woe in the 1839 storm. There were no survivors, and it was said that a woman’s body was found strapped to a mast. Longfellow changed the name of the vessel to the Hesperus , another vessel lost in the 1839 storm, which was wrecked near Boston. The poem was recited by generations of American schoolchildren, and it was still well enough known in the first half of the twentieth century to form the basis for two films, one made in 1927 and the other in 1’48.

Although it was greeted with widespread indifference when it first appeared in 1851, Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is now regarded as one of the greatest American novels. Much of the inspiration for its contents came from the story of the loss of the whaleship Essex in 1820. The ship le( its home port of Nantucket, New England, and went to the Pacific Ocean in quest of whales.

When west of the coast of South America, the crew encountered a sperm whale that struck back at them, smashing a hole in the side of the Essex. Before the ship sank, the crew recovered some supplies from it, but they had only two small whaleboats to carry them across the ocean to South America. After many difficulties, and with some survivors resorting to cannibalism, only eight of the original crew of twenty were eventually picked up by passing ships. Many films have been made based on Moby-Dick , with the 1956 version being the most famous.

Although ships made of iron and, later, steel and propelled by steam engines seemed to promise greater safety at sea than the old wooden sailing ships, shipwrecks still occurred in the late nineteenth century. In December 1875 the German steamship Deutschland , bound for the U-A, was wrecked on a sandbank in the Thames estuary after straying on course. Among those who died in the wreck were five Franciscan nuns fleeing the anti-Catholic laws in Prussia.

Their fate moved a young English Jesuit priest, Gerard Manley Hopkins, to write his famous poem The Wreck of the “Deutschland .” Wooden sailing ships remained vulnerable to shipwreck, and when the Royal Navy’s sail training ship HMS-Eurydice was lost on the Isle of Wight in 1878, with only two survivors from the 361 people on board, Hopkins produced the poem The Loss of the Eurydice . In both poems Hopkins struggles to understand God’s purpose in allowing such tragedies to occur, but finally comes to believe that acceptance of God’s higher wisdom is the only answer. None of Hopkins’s poems was published in his lifetime, but after their first printing in 1918 they were soon recognized as important literary works.

God’s purpose in allowing tragic shipwrecks to happen and His divine providence in allowing some people to survive them have been themes for writers since at least the sixteenth century. In the late nineteenth century the first writers of what would become science fiction saw shipwrecks in a different, more secular light. In his 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1869) Jules Verne created a character in Captain Nemo who is hostile to the world above the sea, with its political and religious conflicts, but even he needs money to support his activities.

Whenever Nemo needs to refill his coffers, he takes his submarine Nautilus to Vigo Bay in northwest Spain, where his divers collect gold, silver and jewels from the Spanish treasure galleons lost there in 1702. Those galleons, escorted by French warships, had arrived at Vigo to escape an Anglo-Dutch fleet that was looking for them. The pursuers then found their prey, sailed into Vigo Bay and destroyed the Franco-Spanish fleet. Although most of the treasure had already been landed before the battle, tales of sunken riches at Vigo continued for decades afterwards.

H. G. Wells, in his novel The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), placed a shipwreck survivor on an island who soon finds out that the resident doctor is conducting evil experiments there on animals and humans. Where once a shipwreck survivor might have been confronted by primitive tribes, he now finds himself at the mercy of a mad scientist.

Although shipwrecks by no means vanish from literature after 1900—indeed, one appears in a fiction work as recent as Yann Martel’s book Life of Pi (2001; film adaptation 2012)—they are no longer such important elements in stories as they were in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

__________________________________

Excerpted from Out of the Depths: A History of Shipwrecks by Alan G. Jamieson, available via Reaktion Books.

Alan G. Jamieson

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Diving into the Wreck Summary & Analysis by Adrienne Rich

• Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis
• Poetic Devices
• Vocabulary & References
• Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme
• Line-by-Line Explanations

"Diving into the Wreck" was written by the American poet Adrienne Rich and first published in a collection of the same name in 1973. The poem opens as the speaker prepares for a deep-sea dive and then follows the speaker's exploration of a shipwreck. Rich was a leading feminist poet, and many critical interpretations view the poem as an extended metaphor relating to the struggle for women's rights and liberation. That said, the poem is rich with symbolism related to a variety of subjects, and its reading doesn't need to be limited by Rich's biography. For example, it can also be taken as a more general exploration of personal identity and people's relationship to the past. To that end, before diving the speaker has "read the book of myths"—which perhaps represents the established ideas, norms, and stories about the wreck (and, metaphorically speaking, about the speaker and/or society at large)—and insists on instead gaining direct experience of the wreck by making the dive. The poem thus also becomes a kind of call for venturing into the perilous unknown in order to find the truth.

• Read the full text of “Diving into the Wreck”

The Full Text of “Diving into the Wreck”

“diving into the wreck” summary, “diving into the wreck” themes.

Women's Oppression and Erasure

Lines 29-33.

• Lines 37-43
• Lines 52-70
• Lines 71-94

Exploration, Vulnerability, and Discovery

Lines 13-21.

• Lines 22-33

Lines 44-51

Lines 52-60.

• Lines 61-70
• Lines 71-77

Lines 87-94

Storytelling and Truths

• Lines 72-73
• Lines 78-82

Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Diving into the Wreck”

First having read ... ... and awkward mask.

I am having ... ... but here alone.

There is a ... ... some sundry equipment.

Lines 22-28

I go down. ... ... I go down.

My flippers cripple ... ... will begin.

Lines 34-43

First the air ... ... the deep element.

And now: it ... ... differently down here.

I came to ... ... fish or weed

Lines 61-63

the thing I ... ... not the myth

Lines 64-70

the drowned face ... ... the tentative haunters.

Lines 71-76

This is the ... ... into the hold.

Lines 77-82

I am she: ... ... left to rot

Lines 83-86

we are the ... ... the fouled compass

We are, I ... ... do not appear.

“Diving into the Wreck” Symbols

• Line 52: “I came to explore the wreck.”
• Lines 55-56: “I came to see the damage that was done / and the treasures that prevail.”
• Lines 57-60: “I stroke the beam of my lamp / slowly along the flank / of something more permanent / than fish or weed”
• Lines 62-63: “the wreck and not the story of the wreck / the thing itself and not the myth”
• Lines 74-76: “We circle silently / about the wreck / we dive into the hold.”
• Lines 79-86: “whose breasts still bear the stress / whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies / obscurely inside barrels / half-wedged and left to rot / we are the half-destroyed instruments / that once held to a course / the water-eaten log / the fouled compass”
• Line 90: “back to this scene”

The Drowned Face

• Lines 64-65: “the drowned face always staring / toward the sun”
• Line 78: “whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes”

The Book of Myths

• Line 1: “First having read the book of myths”
• Lines 53-54: “The words are purposes. / The words are maps.”
• Lines 61-63: “the thing I came for: / the wreck and not the story of the wreck / the thing itself and not the myth”
• Lines 92-94: “a book of myths / in which / our names do not appear.”

“Diving into the Wreck” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

Alliteration.

• Line 5: “body,” “black”
• Line 11: “sun,” “ schooner”
• Line 16: “side,” “schooner”
• Line 17: “We,” “what”
• Line 18: “we”
• Line 21: “some sundry”
• Line 23: “Rung,” “rung”
• Line 29: “cripple”
• Line 30: “crawl”
• Line 34: “blue”
• Line 35: “bluer”
• Line 36: “black,” “blacking”
• Line 37: “my mask,” “powerful”
• Line 38: “pumps,” “my,” “power”
• Line 39: “sea,” “story”
• Line 40: “sea,” “power”
• Line 42: “to turn”
• Line 49: “between”
• Line 50: “besides”
• Line 51: “ breathe,” “differently down”
• Line 55: “damage,” “done”
• Line 57: “stroke”
• Line 58: “slowly”
• Line 59: “something”
• Line 64: “staring”
• Line 65: “sun”
• Line 67: “salt,” “sway”
• Line 73: “ black,” “body”
• Line 74: “circle silently”
• Line 79: “breasts,” “still,” “bear,” “stress”
• Line 80: “silver,” “copper,” “cargo”
• Line 84: “course”
• Line 86: “compass”
• Line 88: “cowardice,” “courage”
• Line 91: “carrying,” “camera”
• Lines 9-11: “not like Cousteau with his / assiduous team / aboard the sun-flooded schooner”
• Lines 13-18: “There is a ladder. / The ladder is always there / hanging innocently / close to the side of the schooner. / We know what it is for, / we who have used it.”
• Line 3: “checked,” “edge”
• Line 4: “on”
• Line 5: “body,” “armor,” “rubber”
• Line 6: “absurd flippers”
• Line 7: “awkward”
• Line 9: “his”
• Line 10: “assiduous”
• Line 11: “sun-flooded”
• Line 29: “flippers cripple”
• Line 37: “mask,” “powerful”
• Line 38: “pumps,” “blood,” “power”
• Line 39: “the sea,” “story”
• Line 40: “the sea,” “power”
• Line 49: “between,” “reefs”
• Line 51: “breathe,” “differently”
• Line 52: “explore”
• Line 53: “words”
• Line 54: “words”
• Line 69: “curving,” “assertion”
• Line 71: “This is”
• Line 73: “armored body”
• Line 74: “We,” “circle,” “silently”
• Line 77: “she,” “he”
• Line 78: “sleeps,” “eyes”
• Line 79: “breasts,” “stress”
• Line 80: “silver, copper, vermeil,” “lies”
• Line 81: “inside”
• Line 82: “wedged,” “left”
• Line 85: “water,” “log”
• Line 44: “now: it”
• Line 72: “here, the”
• Line 73: “black, the”
• Line 77: “she: I”
• Line 87: “are, I am, you”
• Line 91: “knife, a”
• Line 1: “book”
• Line 2: “and loaded,” “camera”
• Line 3: “checked,” “blade”
• Line 5: “body-armor,” “black rubber”
• Line 7: “grave,” “and,” “awkward mask”
• Line 9: “like,” “Cousteau,” “his”
• Line 10: “assiduous,” “team”
• Line 11: “aboard,” “sun-flooded schooner”
• Line 12: “alone”
• Line 13: “ladder”
• Line 14: “ladder,” “is always”
• Line 15: “hanging innocently”
• Line 16: “close,” “side,” “schooner”
• Line 20: “piece,” “maritime,” “floss”
• Line 24: “immerses me”
• Line 25: “blue light”
• Line 26: “clear,” “atoms”
• Line 27: “human”
• Line 30: “crawl,” “like,” “an insect,” “down,” “ladder”
• Line 32: “when,” “ocean”
• Line 33: “will,” “ begin”
• Line 35: “bluer,” “and then green and then”
• Line 39: “sea is,” “story”
• Line 40: “sea is,” “question,” “power”
• Line 41: “learn alone”
• Line 48: “swaying,” “fans”
• Line 51: “breathe,” “differently down”
• Line 52: “explore,” “wreck”
• Line 53: “words,” “purposes”
• Line 54: “words,” “maps”
• Line 57: “beam ,” “my lamp”
• Line 58: “slowly ,” “along,” “flank”
• Line 59: “something more permanent”
• Line 61: “the thing”
• Line 63: “the thing,” “the myth”
• Line 64: “face always staring”
• Line 66: “evidence”
• Line 67: “salt,” “sway,” “this threadbare,” “beauty”
• Line 68: “ribs,” “disaster”
• Line 70: “among,” “tentative haunters”
• Line 72: “mermaid”
• Line 73: “streams black,” “merman,” “armored body”
• Line 78: “face sleeps,” “open”
• Line 79: “breasts still bear,” “stress”
• Line 80: “silver,” “copper,” “vermeil,” “cargo,” “lies”
• Line 81: “obscurely inside barrels”
• Line 82: “half,” “left,” “rot”
• Line 83: “half-destroyed instruments”
• Line 84: “once,” “held,” “course”
• Line 85: “water-eaten,” “log”
• Line 86: “fouled,” “compass”
• Line 89: “one,” “find”
• Line 90: “this scene”
• Line 92: “book”
• Line 94: “names,” “not”
• Lines 4-5: “on / the”
• Lines 5-6: “rubber / the”
• Lines 6-7: “flippers / the”
• Lines 8-9: “this / not”
• Lines 9-10: “his / assiduous”
• Lines 10-11: “team / aboard”
• Lines 11-12: “schooner / but”
• Lines 14-15: “there / hanging”
• Lines 15-16: “innocently / close”
• Lines 19-20: “Otherwise / it”
• Lines 20-21: “floss / some”
• Lines 23-24: “still / the”
• Lines 24-25: “me / the”
• Lines 25-26: “ light / the”
• Lines 26-27: “atoms / of”
• Lines 30-31: “ladder / and”
• Lines 31-32: “ one / to”
• Lines 32-33: “ocean / will”
• Lines 34-35: “then / it”
• Lines 35-36: “then / black”
• Lines 36-37: “yet / my”
• Lines 37-38: “powerful / it”
• Lines 38-39: “power / the”
• Lines 39-40: “story / the”
• Lines 40-41: “power / I”
• Lines 41-42: “alone / to”
• Lines 42-43: “force / in”
• Lines 44-45: “forget / what”
• Lines 45-46: “for / among”
• Lines 46-47: “always / lived”
• Lines 47-48: “here / swaying”
• Lines 48-49: “fans / between”
• Lines 49-50: “reefs / and”
• Lines 50-51: “besides / you”
• Lines 55-56: “done / and”
• Lines 57-58: “lamp / slowly”
• Lines 58-59: “flank / of”
• Lines 59-60: “permanent / than”
• Lines 60-61: “weed / the”
• Lines 62-63: “wreck / the”
• Lines 63-64: “myth / the”
• Lines 64-65: “staring / toward”
• Lines 65-66: “sun / the”
• Lines 66-67: “damage / worn”
• Lines 67-68: “beauty / the”
• Lines 68-69: “disaster / curving”
• Lines 69-70: “assertion / among”
• Lines 72-73: “hair / streams”
• Lines 74-75: “silently / about”
• Lines 75-76: “wreck / we”
• Lines 77-78: “he / whose”
• Lines 78-79: “eyes / whose”
• Lines 79-80: “stress / whose”
• Lines 80-81: “lies / obscurely”
• Lines 81-82: “ barrels / half-wedged”
• Lines 82-83: “rot / we”
• Lines 83-84: “instruments / that”
• Lines 84-85: “course / the”
• Lines 85-86: “log / the”
• Lines 87-88: “are / by”
• Lines 88-89: “courage / the”
• Lines 89-90: “way / back”
• Lines 90-91: “scene / carrying”
• Lines 91-92: “camera / a”
• Lines 92-93: “myths / in”
• Lines 93-94: “which / our”

Extended Metaphor

• Lines 1-3: “First having read the book of myths, / and loaded the camera, / and checked the edge of the knife-blade,”
• Line 5: “the”
• Line 6: “the”
• Line 7: “the”
• Line 11: “schooner”
• Line 14: “ladder”
• Line 16: “schooner”
• Line 24: “the”
• Line 25: “the”
• Line 26: “the”
• Line 30: “ladder”
• Line 34: “blue,” “and then”
• Line 35: “bluer and then green and then”
• Line 38: “power”
• Line 39: “the sea is”
• Line 40: “the sea is,” “power”
• Line 53: “The words are”
• Line 54: “The words are”
• Line 62: “the wreck,” “the wreck”
• Line 63: “the thing”
• Line 77: “I am she: I am he”
• Line 78: “whose”
• Line 79: “whose”
• Line 80: “whose”
• Line 82: “half-wedged”
• Line 83: “half-destroyed”
• Line 85: “the”
• Line 86: “the”
• Line 87: “We are, I am, you are”
• Lines 91-92: “carrying a knife, a camera / a book of myths”
• Line 30: “I crawl like an insect down the ladder”

“Diving into the Wreck” 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.

• Maritime floss
• Crenellated
• Salt and sway
• Mermaid/Merman
• (Location in poem: Line 9: “Cousteau”)

Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Diving into the Wreck”

Rhyme scheme, “diving into the wreck” speaker, “diving into the wreck” setting, literary and historical context of “diving into the wreck”, more “diving into the wreck” resources, external resources.

In the Poet's Own Voice — Adrienne Rich reads "Diving into the Wreck." 

Rich in the New Yorker — An insightful analysis of Rich's poetic work from the New Yorker.

Rich's Life and Work — A valuable resource from the Poetry Foundation.  

Plato and the Androgyne — An excerpt from Plato's discussion of the androgyne figure, which appears recurrently in Rich's poetry from around this time. 

Feminism and Poetry — A wonderful selection of poems organized by their relationship to the different stages of the feminist movement. 

LitCharts on Other Poems by Adrienne Rich

Aunt Jennifer's Tigers

Living in Sin

Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law

What Kind of Times Are These

Ask LitCharts AI: The answer to your questions

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“The Shipwreck” by Emily Dickinson – 2023 Prescribed NSC Poetry

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Explore the depths of Emily Dickinson’s “The Shipwreck” with this comprehensive digital poetry pack. Perfect for students of all levels studying English Literature, this pack includes a detailed PowerPoint presentation with comprehensive analysis, a blank student copy of the poem, an annotated version, worksheets on the author and themes, and a TP-CASTT analysis activity. Additionally, we have included suggested post-reading activities and a suggested essay topic to help you engage with the poem and its meaning. The PowerPoint presentation provides a visual and engaging way to explore the poem’s themes, imagery, and structure. The annotated version of the poem includes additional insights and analysis to help students understand the poem’s meaning and message. The worksheets and activities are designed to help students develop critical thinking, analysis, and literary interpretation skills. The suggested essay topic will help students practice their writing and research skills.   Whether you’re a student, teacher, or homeschooling parent, this digital poetry pack on “The Shipwreck” by Emily Dickinson is the perfect resource to help you gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of this powerful and evocative poem. With a range of materials to suit all learning styles, this pack will help you to unlock the rich meanings and imagery of this classic poem.

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The shipwreck

Absolutely amazing ,well out together worksheets and PowerPoint. Very informative, eye catching and interesting.

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The Circumstances of Emily Dickinson’s Death: Insights into the Poet’s Final Days

This essay is about the circumstances surrounding Emily Dickinson’s death, emphasizing the mysterious nature of her passing and the challenges she faced leading up to it. Dickinson died in 1886, officially of Bright’s disease, though speculation remains about other potential contributing illnesses. Her final years were marked by personal losses, declining health, and increased reclusion, yet she continued to write prolifically. After her death, her sister Lavinia found almost 1,800 poems, most unpublished and hidden in Emily’s room. These poems would later be published, revealing her as one of the greatest American poets. The essay also explores how her distinctive style, rich imagery, and exploration of death and consciousness left a significant legacy, offering a glimpse into her profound intellect despite her reclusive life.

How it works

Emily Dickinson, one of the most enigmatic figures in American poetry, lived a secluded life that fascinated and puzzled scholars. Her death, as much as her life, has remained shrouded in mystery, marked by illness and solitude. Dickinson passed away on May 15, 1886, in her family home in Amherst, Massachusetts. The official cause of death listed by her physician was Bright’s disease, a catch-all term at the time that referred to various kidney ailments. While this diagnosis remains the accepted cause of death, there’s much speculation around what exactly caused her to decline in her final years.

In the period leading up to her death, Dickinson had become increasingly reclusive. She had long since stopped attending church services and limited her interactions primarily to her immediate family. Her letters from that time hint at her growing frailty, using her signature poetic and metaphorical language. She wrote to her friends about her struggles, describing “an aching head” and “weak lungs.” This gradual decline was set against a backdrop of personal losses that struck the already reclusive poet particularly hard.

Her father, Edward Dickinson, had died unexpectedly in 1874, leaving Emily emotionally shaken. The loss of her father, who had been a dominant yet supportive figure in her life, seemed to cast a pall over the household. Two years later, her mother suffered a debilitating stroke, which left Emily and her sister Lavinia to care for her. Despite her already fragile health, Emily took on this role with dedication, but the emotional toll it took on her was evident. Her nephew, Gilbert, who was particularly dear to her, died in 1883 of typhoid fever, a loss that left Emily devastated.

These personal tragedies, combined with her own deteriorating health, contributed to her increasing isolation. Her letters became more infrequent, and she refrained from her usual social activities. However, she did not stop writing. In fact, some of her most poignant work comes from this period, although it was often less organized and edited than her earlier poems. The subject of death became more frequent in her writing, explored with her characteristic mix of curiosity, melancholy, and wit.

In her final weeks, Dickinson was bedridden and attended by her sister Lavinia. The poet’s passing was relatively quiet, with little fanfare outside the immediate family. After her death, Lavinia discovered nearly 1,800 poems hidden in a locked chest in Emily’s room. Although Emily had shared some of her work with a few close friends, she had kept most of her poetry private, preferring to create without the scrutiny of public exposure.

Lavinia understood the importance of this discovery and took it upon herself to organize and publish her sister’s work. With the help of family friends Mabel Loomis Todd and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, the poems were prepared for publication, although not without substantial editing that sometimes altered the original punctuation and syntax. Despite these changes, the published volumes were met with critical acclaim, gradually revealing Emily Dickinson as a towering figure in American literature.

Today, Dickinson’s legacy endures as a remarkable and distinctive voice. Her unconventional punctuation, striking imagery, and exploration of themes like mortality, consciousness, and the self continue to captivate readers. Her poems, which often play with form and structure, reflect her unique perspective on life, blending irony, melancholy, and hope in a way that still resonates deeply.

Her death, much like her life, remains a topic of fascination and speculation. While Bright’s disease is the official cause of her demise, some modern medical experts believe other factors like heart disease or hypertension might have contributed. However, the true nature of her illness will likely remain a mystery, given the lack of precise medical records. Despite the questions surrounding her passing, her work offers glimpses into her resilient spirit and profound intellect, providing a window into her interior world even as her reclusive life kept her largely hidden from view.

Ultimately, Dickinson’s story is not only about death but about how she made sense of the world around her. Her fascination with the ethereal and the everyday allowed her to explore profound ideas in ways that still feel fresh and relevant. In the quiet of her Amherst home, she created a body of work that transformed the way we see poetry, leaving an indelible mark on American literature. Her final days might have been filled with illness and isolation, but the legacy she left behind is one of creativity, brilliance, and a unique window into the human soul.

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The Circumstances of Emily Dickinson's Death: Insights into the Poet's Final Days. (2024, May 21). Retrieved from https://papersowl.com/examples/the-circumstances-of-emily-dickinsons-death-insights-into-the-poets-final-days/

"The Circumstances of Emily Dickinson's Death: Insights into the Poet's Final Days." PapersOwl.com , 21 May 2024, https://papersowl.com/examples/the-circumstances-of-emily-dickinsons-death-insights-into-the-poets-final-days/

PapersOwl.com. (2024). The Circumstances of Emily Dickinson's Death: Insights into the Poet's Final Days . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/the-circumstances-of-emily-dickinsons-death-insights-into-the-poets-final-days/ [Accessed: 21 May. 2024]

"The Circumstances of Emily Dickinson's Death: Insights into the Poet's Final Days." PapersOwl.com, May 21, 2024. Accessed May 21, 2024. https://papersowl.com/examples/the-circumstances-of-emily-dickinsons-death-insights-into-the-poets-final-days/

"The Circumstances of Emily Dickinson's Death: Insights into the Poet's Final Days," PapersOwl.com , 21-May-2024. [Online]. Available: https://papersowl.com/examples/the-circumstances-of-emily-dickinsons-death-insights-into-the-poets-final-days/. [Accessed: 21-May-2024]

PapersOwl.com. (2024). The Circumstances of Emily Dickinson's Death: Insights into the Poet's Final Days . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/the-circumstances-of-emily-dickinsons-death-insights-into-the-poets-final-days/ [Accessed: 21-May-2024]

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May 20, 2024 PBS NewsHour full episode

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Monday on the NewsHour, the International Criminal Court issues arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Iran's president and foreign minister are killed in a helicopter crash, raising questions about future leadership of the country. Plus, the prosecution rests its case in former President Trump's hush money trial.

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Episodes from poet’s life are recounted in essays | DON NOBLE

Students at the University of Alabama in the late ’60s and early ’70s will remember James Seay. Tall, slender, with long brown hair, and a black eye patch over his right eye, Seay taught poetry writing and was a presence.

His first book, “Let Not Your Hart,” won the prestigious Wesleyan Prize for poetry in 1970. The verse is luminously accessible, a miracle by today’s standards, and many concern his childhood in Mississippi, in Panola County — just east of the Delta.

More: Novel explores apocalypse and religion in Mississippi | DON NOBLE

Seay wrote of poverty. A poem about fishing for catfish by hand, grabbling in Yokna Bottom, concludes “The well-fed do not wade this low river.”

There are poems of hard work, often amusing and admiring.

“Kelly Dug a Hole” is a hymn of praise to simple tasks done perfectly. “Kelly’s hole was true.” If, one day, the building collapses, the last part to fail will be where Kelly dug.

And there is of course a poem about shopping, with his father, for a glass eye after losing his eye to a lawn mower. The boy knows the salesman “would not find my soft brown eye, not in a thousand leather trays.”

Now, half a century and six volumes of poetry later, James Seay has published a book of 20 essays, “Come! Come! Where? Where?: Essays.”

The first — and the last — speak of a loss even greater than the loss of his eye. Seay and his ex-wife, Lee Smith, lost their son Josh to mental illness and early death at 33.

Several return to the themes of “Let Not Your Hart.” Some recount stories of laboring and as foreman of laborers.

In the ironically titled “Big Boss Man,” set in 1959, he is supervising a crew of Black and white workers constructing a classroom building at Ole Miss. The racial and class currents are almost too complex to relate. The Black workers work with and are separate from the white workers. The blue-collar whites resent Seay, the educated boy and their boss. But he concludes, generously, that the surliest among them is just trying to feed his family.

The essays are scattered through time and space.

There are several accounts of fishing trips, a few of literary commentary, and a fresh essay on some places in Faulkner that are Seay’s own places.

The funniest piece is “Avian Voices: Trying Not To Kill a Mockingbird.” In addition to giving musical pleasure, mockingbirds can be very irritating

One favorite is his 1987 visit or attempted visit to Chekhov’s grave. That day there happened to be a funeral for a Soviet official. The guard was under orders to allow no one else into the cemetery.

Seay explained, pled, that he might never again be in the country. “Nyet.”

Desperate to be admitted, Seay has his translator tell the guard “I am a relative of Chekhov”: “My adult life has been given to the cause of literature.”

And that’s the truth.

Don Noble’s newest book is Alabama Noir, a collection of original stories by Winston Groom, Ace Atkins, Carolyn Haines, Brad Watson, and eleven other Alabama authors.

“Come! Come! Where? Where?: Essays”

Author: James Seay

Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 2024

Price: $22.95

Food pantry fundraiser, Grandparent/Grandchild foam party: Community events May 20-26

Fundraiser for local food pantry.

EPPING — Pilgrim Church Brentwood-Kingston is partnering with Community Oven in Epping for a fundraiser to benefit the church's food pantry. On Monday, May 20, Community Oven at their Epping location at Brickyard Plaza on 125 in Epping will donate 20% of all food sales from 4-9 p.m. (both in person and online) to the Pilgrim Church food pantry. There will be raffles including gardening and charcuterie baskets and 50/50 as well. Call Pilgrim Church at 603-778-3189 or visit our website  [email protected]  for further information.

Berwick Historical Society Meeting

BERWICK, Maine - Everyone is invited to the next meeting of the Berwick Historical Society on Monday, May 20, at 6:30 p.m. in the Burgess Room at Town Hall, 11 Sullivan St., Berwick. Old postcards of Berwick will be on view. Light refreshments will be served.

An Evening of Poetry

DOVER — Monday, May 20 at 6:30 p.m. the Dover Public Library invites you to attend an “Evening of Poetry."  All poets who participated in the library’s 22nd annual Poetry Contest are invited to read their poetry at this event. The general public is encouraged to come and enjoy the readings. This event will take place on the library lawn (rain location is the library's Lecture Hall). 

Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.

Create an advanced directive at Wentworth-Douglass

DOVER — Wentworth-Douglass Hospital is hosting a free event to assist those interested in drafting an advanced directive. The event will be held Tuesday, May 21 from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Dover Public Library.  Wentworth-Douglass is offering attendees a 30-minute appointment with a social worker, who will assist in creating the document. There is a limit of 12 appointments. To schedule an appointment, or inquire further, please call the hospital’s social work office at 603-740-2826.

Grandparent/Grandchild Foam Party

PORTSMOUTH — An Ultimate foam adventure from Sages Entertainment for kiddos and grandfriends will be at the Portsmouth Senior Activity Center on Wednesday, May 22, 4-6 p.m. All ages event, ice cream bar, music. RSVP to 603-610-4433.

'Whitewashing the Diseased Ship: New England's Role in the Slave Trade'

BERWICK, Maine — The Berwick Public Library’s Maine Speaks series continues Wednesday, May 22, at 6 p.m. with "Whitewashing the Diseased Ship: New England's Role in the Slave Trade." This free talk will be led by Meadow Dibble, founder and executive director of Atlantic Black Box.

Family Storytime at Riverside Rest Home

DOVER — Wednesday, May 22 at 10 a.m. come join the Dover Public Library for Family Storytime. Children of all ages with caregivers are invited to attend this program which includes stories, fingerplays, songs, and puppets. This storytime will take place at Riverside Rest Home on 276 County Farm Road in Dover.

Genealogical Gold in Town Books and Reports

RYE — Robert Cameron Weir will present Genealogical Gold in Town Books and Reports at 6:30p.m., on Thursday, May 23 at the Rye Library, 581 Washington Road.  Free and open to the public.

Explore Girl Scouts

DOVER — Come explore Girl Scouts on Thursday, May 23, 5:30-6:30 p.m. at The First Parish Church of Dover, 218 Central Ave., Dover. RSVP to 888-474-9686 or  [email protected]  – or just drop in.

What is ChatGPT? Here's everything you need to know about ChatGPT, the chatbot everyone's still talking about

• ChatGPT is getting a futuristic human update. 
• ChatGPT has drawn users at a feverish pace and spurred Big Tech to release other AI chatbots.
• Here's how ChatGPT works — and what's coming next.

OpenAI's blockbuster chatbot ChatGPT is getting a new update. 

On Monday, OpenAI unveiled GPT-4o for ChatGPT, a new version of the bot that can hold conversations with users in a very human tone. The new version of the chatbot will also have vision abilities.

The futuristic reveal quickly prompted jokes about parallels to the movie "Her," with some calling the chatbot's new voice " cringe ."

The move is a big step for the future of AI-powered virtual assistants, which tech companies have been racing to develop.

Since its release in 2022, hundreds of millions of people have experimented with the tool, which is already changing how the internet looks and feels to users.

Users have flocked to ChatGPT to improve their personal lives and boost productivity . Some workers have used the AI chatbot to develop code , write real estate listings , and create lesson plans, while others have made teaching the best ways to use ChatGPT a career all to itself.

ChatGPT offers dozens of plug-ins to those who subscribe to ChatGPT Plus subscription. An Expedia one can help you book a trip, while an OpenTable one will get nab you a dinner reservation. And last month, OpenAI launched Code Interpreter, a version of ChatGPT that can code and analyze data .

While the personal tone of conversations with an AI bot like ChatGPT can evoke the experience of chatting with a human, the technology, which runs on " large language model tools, " doesn't speak with sentience and doesn't "think" the way people do. 

That means that even though ChatGPT can explain quantum physics or write a poem on command, a full AI takeover isn't exactly imminent , according to experts.

"There's a saying that an infinite number of monkeys will eventually give you Shakespeare," said Matthew Sag, a law professor at Emory University who studies copyright implications for training and using large language models like ChatGPT.

"There's a large number of monkeys here, giving you things that are impressive — but there is intrinsically a difference between the way that humans produce language, and the way that large language models do it," he said. 

Chatbots like ChatGPT are powered by large amounts of data and computing techniques to make predictions to string words together in a meaningful way. They not only tap into a vast amount of vocabulary and information, but also understand words in context. This helps them mimic speech patterns while dispatching an encyclopedic knowledge. 

Other tech companies like Google and Meta have developed their own large language model tools, which use programs that take in human prompts and devise sophisticated responses.

Despite the AI's impressive capabilities, some have called out OpenAI's chatbot for spewing misinformation , stealing personal data for training purposes , and even encouraging students to cheat and plagiarize on their assignments. 

Some recent efforts to use chatbots for real-world services have proved troubling. In 2023, the mental health company Koko came under fire after its founder wrote about how the company used GPT-3 in an experiment to reply to users. 

Koko cofounder Rob Morris hastened to clarify on Twitter that users weren't speaking directly to a chatbot, but that AI was used to "help craft" responses. 

Read Insider's coverage on ChatGPT and some of the strange new ways that both people and companies are using chat bots: 

The tech world's reception to ChatGPT:

Microsoft is chill with employees using ChatGPT — just don't share 'sensitive data' with it.

Microsoft's investment into ChatGPT's creator may be the smartest $1 billion ever spent

ChatGPT and generative AI look like tech's next boom. They could be the next bubble.

The ChatGPT and generative-AI 'gold rush' has founders flocking to San Francisco's 'Cerebral Valley'

Insider's experiments: 

I asked ChatGPT to do my work and write an Insider article for me. It quickly generated an alarmingly convincing article filled with misinformation.

I asked ChatGPT and a human matchmaker to redo my Hinge and Bumble profiles. They helped show me what works.

I asked ChatGPT to reply to my Hinge matches. No one responded.

I used ChatGPT to write a resignation letter. A lawyer said it made one crucial error that could have invalidated the whole thing .

Read ChatGPT's 'insulting' and 'garbage' 'Succession' finale script

An Iowa school district asked ChatGPT if a list of books contains sex scenes, and banned them if it said yes. We put the system to the test and found a bunch of problems.

Developments in detecting ChatGPT: 

Teachers rejoice! ChatGPT creators have released a tool to help detect AI-generated writing

A Princeton student built an app which can detect if ChatGPT wrote an essay to combat AI-based plagiarism

Professors want to 'ChatGPT-proof' assignments, and are returning to paper exams and requesting editing history to curb AI cheating

ChatGPT in society: 

BuzzFeed writers react with a mix of disappointment and excitement at news that AI-generated content is coming to the website

ChatGPT is testing a paid version — here's what that means for free users

A top UK private school is changing its approach to homework amid the rise of ChatGPT, as educators around the world adapt to AI

Princeton computer science professor says don't panic over 'bullshit generator' ChatGPT

DoNotPay's CEO says threat of 'jail for 6 months' means plan to debut AI 'robot lawyer' in courtroom is on ice

It might be possible to fight a traffic ticket with an AI 'robot lawyer' secretly feeding you lines to your AirPods, but it could go off the rails

Online mental health company uses ChatGPT to help respond to users in experiment — raising ethical concerns around healthcare and AI technology

What public figures think about ChatGPT and other AI tools:

What Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and 12 other business leaders think about AI tools like ChatGPT

Elon Musk was reportedly 'furious' at ChatGPT's popularity after he left the company behind it, OpenAI, years ago

CEO of ChatGPT maker responds to schools' plagiarism concerns: 'We adapted to calculators and changed what we tested in math class'

A theoretical physicist says AI is just a 'glorified tape recorder' and people's fears about it are overblown

'The most stunning demo I've ever seen in my life': ChatGPT impressed Bill Gates

Ashton Kutcher says your company will probably be 'out of business' if you're 'sleeping' on AI

ChatGPT's impact on jobs: 

AI systems like ChatGPT could impact 300 million full-time jobs worldwide, with administrative and legal roles some of the most at risk, Goldman Sachs report says

Jobs are now requiring experience with ChatGPT — and they'll pay as much as $800,000 a year for the skill

Related stories

ChatGPT may be coming for our jobs. Here are the 10 roles that AI is most likely to replace.

AI is going to eliminate way more jobs than anyone realizes

It's not AI that is going to take your job, but someone who knows how to use AI might, economist says

4 careers where workers will have to change jobs by 2030 due to AI and shifts in how we shop, a McKinsey study says

Companies like Amazon, Netflix, and Meta are paying salaries as high as $900,000 to attract generative AI talent

How AI tools like ChatGPT are changing the workforce:

10 ways artificial intelligence is changing the workplace, from writing performance reviews to making the 4-day workweek possible

Managers who use AI will replace managers who don't, says an IBM exec

How ChatGPT is shaping industries: 

ChatGPT is coming for classrooms, hospitals, marketing departments, and everything else as the next great startup boom emerges

Marketing teams are using AI to generate content, boost SEO, and develop branding to help save time and money, study finds

AI is coming for Hollywood. 'It's amazing to see the sophistication of the images,' one of Christopher Nolan's VFX guy says.

AI is going to offer every student a personalized tutor, founder of Khan Academy says

A law firm was fined $5,000 after one of its lawyers used ChatGPT to write a court brief riddled with fake case references

How workers are using ChatGPT to boost productivity:  

CheatGPT: The hidden wave of employees using AI on the sly

I used ChatGPT to talk to my boss for a week and she didn't notice. Here are the other ways I use it daily to get work done.

I'm a high school math and science teacher who uses ChatGPT, and it's made my job much easier

Amazon employees are already using ChatGPT for software coding. They also found the AI chatbot can answer tricky AWS customer questions and write cloud training materials.

How 6 workers are using ChatGPT to make their jobs easier

I'm a freelance editor who's embraced working with AI content. Here's how I do it and what I charge.

How people are using ChatGPT to make money:

How ChatGPT and other AI tools are helping workers make more money

Here are 5 ways ChatGPT helps me make money and complete time-consuming tasks for my business

ChatGPT course instruction is the newest side hustle on the market. Meet the teachers making thousands from the lucrative gig.

People are using ChatGPT and other AI bots to work side hustles and earn thousands of dollars — check out these 8 freelancing gigs

A guy tried using ChatGPT to turn $100 into a business making 'as much money as possible.' Here are the first 4 steps the AI chatbot gave him

We used ChatGPT to build a 7-figure newsletter. Here's how it makes our jobs easier.

I use ChatGPT and it's like having a 24/7 personal assistant for $20 a month. Here are 5 ways it's helping me make more money.

A worker who uses AI for a $670 monthly side hustle says ChatGPT has 'cut her research time in half'

How companies are navigating ChatGPT: 

From Salesforce to Air India, here are the companies that are using ChatGPT

Amazon, Apple, and 12 other major companies that have restricted employees from using ChatGPT

A consultant used ChatGPT to free up time so she could focus on pitching clients. She landed $128,000 worth of new contracts in just 3 months.

Luminary, an AI-generated pop-up restaurant, just opened in Australia. Here's what's on the menu, from bioluminescent calamari to chocolate mousse.

A CEO is spending more than $2,000 a month on ChatGPT Plus accounts for all of his employees, and he says it's saving 'hours' of time

How people are using ChatGPT in their personal lives:

ChatGPT planned a family vacation to Costa Rica. A travel adviser found 3 glaring reasons why AI won't replace experts anytime soon.

A man who hated cardio asked ChatGPT to get him into running. Now, he's hooked — and he's lost 26 pounds.

A computer engineering student is using ChatGPT to overcome learning challenges linked to her dyslexia

How a coder used ChatGPT to find an apartment in Berlin in 2 weeks after struggling for months

Food blogger Nisha Vora tried ChatGPT to create a curry recipe. She says it's clear the instructions lacked a human touch — here's how.

Men are using AI to land more dates with better profiles and personalized messages, study finds

Lawsuits against OpenAI:

OpenAI could face a plagiarism lawsuit from The New York Times as tense negotiations threaten to boil over, report says

This is why comedian Sarah Silverman is suing OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT

2 authors say OpenAI 'ingested' their books to train ChatGPT. Now they're suing, and a 'wave' of similar court cases may follow.

A lawsuit claims OpenAI stole 'massive amounts of personal data,' including medical records and information about children, to train ChatGPT

A radio host is suing OpenAI for defamation, alleging that ChatGPT created a false legal document that accused him of 'defrauding and embezzling funds'

Tips on how to write better ChatGPT prompts:

7 ways to use ChatGPT at work to boost your productivity, make your job easier, and save a ton of time

I'm an AI prompt engineer. Here are 3 ways I use ChatGPT to get the best results.

12 ways to get better at using ChatGPT: Comprehensive prompt guide

Here's 9 ways to turn ChatGPT Plus into your personal data analyst with the new Code Interpreter plug-in

OpenAI's ChatGPT can write impressive code. Here are the prompts you should use for the best results, experts say.

Axel Springer, Business Insider's parent company, has a global deal to allow OpenAI to train its models on its media brands' reporting.

Watch: What is ChatGPT, and should we be afraid of AI chatbots?

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