* Romantic clichés: Emmeline's poetry is filled with overused and sentimental themes like lost love, death, and the beauty of nature. Twain mocks the predictable and melodramatic nature of popular romantic poetry of the time.
* Sentimentalism: Twain critiques the excessive use of sentimentality in literature and culture. Emmeline's poetry, with its focus on exaggerated emotions and flowery language, represents this excess.
* Southern "genteel" culture: Emmeline's poetry reflects the idealized view of Southern life that was prevalent in the antebellum period. Twain satirizes this romanticized image by contrasting it with the reality of violence and feuding that the Grangerfords are involved in.
* The "Cult of True Womanhood": The idealized image of womanhood presented in Emmeline's poems, with its emphasis on piety, purity, and domesticity, was a common trope of the era. Twain subverts this image by portraying Emmeline's family as deeply flawed and entangled in a bloody feud.
Essentially, Twain uses Emmeline's poetry as a vehicle to expose the hypocrisy and absurdity of certain cultural values and literary trends of his time.