Which is the most likely purpose of the dashes in "that i did always love"?
(a)to replace a word missing from the manuscript
(b)to encourage readers to note individual words
(c)to indicate a shift in the author’s thoughts (d)to denote stages in the poem’s development

The correct answer is B, to encourage readers to note individual words. When analyzing Emily Dickinson´s work, including this short poem, she often makes use of dashes and there are two reasons why she does this. The first, to replace the use of punctuation like commas and periods. This seems to have been a characteristic not just of Dickinson, but of other writers, particularly poets, of her time. But the second reason that has been analyzed is that often Dickinson used dashes, and capitalization, to emphasize certain words that she wanted the reader to capture above any others. This way she could ensure that these words moved the necessary emotions and feelings in the reader so that they could understand the importance of what the writer was trying to portray through those words, some underlined, and some even absent.

his face was as red as an