Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR)
Vol-3, Issue-5, 2017
ISSN: 2454-1362, http://www.onlinejournal.in
Death as a Mystic Experience in the
Poetry of Emily Dickinson
Dr. Om Prakash Tiwari1 & Yasir Ahmad Khanday2
1
Associate Professor, Dept. of English, C V Raman University Bilaspur(C G).
2
Research Scholar (M. Phil.), C V Raman University Bilaspur(C G).
Abstract: The theme of death is recurrently
employed in English Literature, particularly in
poetry. Poets across the world view it differently.
Death is viewed both as a destroyer as well as a
solacer and rescuer. For some it is the culmination
of life and for some it just opens the door to new
eternal world. Death is also viewed as an escape
route from the dull, mundane and grief-stricken
world of reality, just as nature was the escape
route for the Romantics. In this paper, our concern
is to explore Emily Dickinson’s mystical
perspective on death by evaluating some of her
poems. Emily Dickinson has mystically experienced
death. Dickinson views death as the provider of
comfort, a rescuer from the worldly pain and
agony, a solacer in the world of despondency, a
way out to the world of perpetual bliss and what
not. The idea of death in her poetry is repeatedly
accompanied by the possibility of life after death.
She does not fear it but, accepts it as a cosmic truth
and simply a doorway to the world of immortality.
For Dickinson, this physical world and its life are
mortal and it involves nothing but stress, strain,
chaos and confusion, which can only be stopped
with the arrival of death. Her mystic experience of
death makes her a unique poet. She feels one with
death and is obsessed with it. She is so obsessed
with death that she attributed roughly some five
hundred poems to the theme of death. That is why
death is one of the dominant themes in her poetry.
In this present paper, we are going to analyze these
below mentioned poems to explore and exhibit
death as a mystic experience in the poetry of Emily
Dickinson. The poems are: ‘Tie the string to my
life-my lord’, ‘Death is a Dialogue between’,
‘Because I could not stop for death’ ‘Ample make
this Bed’, ‘The clouds their backs together laid’, ‘I
heard a fly buzz when I died’, ‘I felt a funeral in my
brain’, ‘There’s something quieter than sleep’,
‘Dust is the only secret’, ‘A death blow is a lifeblow to some’, ‘After a hundred years’, ‘Not any
higher stands the grave’ and ‘To die- takes just a
little while’.
Introduction:
Key Words: Death, eternal, mystic, obsession,
immortality, escape route.
The theme of death is rampant in
the poems of Emily Dickinson. She has her own
unique perspective about death. She has mystically
Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR)
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was
born in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States on
December 10, 1830. She belonged to a well-to-do
family and was the darling of her lawyer father.
Emily Dickinson self-restrained from social
gatherings throughout her life and lived in
seclusion and solitariness. Emily never married
though she was close to few men. She was made
familiar with Bible early in her childhood and
perhaps her puritan surroundings taught her about
the mortality of life. Thus the religion can be held
responsible for her introduction of the theme of
death in her poetry. Her lifelong attention was
occupied by the death. She was also troubled from
a young age with the death of those who were close
to her. Sophia Holland, her cousin and close friend
died in 1844. Emily’s Amherst Academy Principal,
Leonard Humphrey also died. In 1874, her father
suffered a stroke and died. Her mother also became
effectively bed-ridden and finally died in 1882. Her
close friend, Charles Wadsworth also died in the
same year. Otis P. Lord, another close friend and
supposed lover of Emily also died in 1884. These
people were very important for Emily and from
their deaths, she was shaken from within. She
herself wrote:
“The dyings have been too deep for
me, and before I could raise my heart from one,
another has come”.
Emily Dickinson lived her later
life by remaining confined to her bedroom. She
was a prolific private poet, but she remained almost
an unknown figure in her lifetime. She wrote 1775
poems out of which only a dozen of her poems
were published in her lifetime. She became known
to the world only after the publication of her
amazing and praise-worthy poems in 1890 but, she
was dead by then, as she died in the year 1886 at
the age of 55.
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Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR)
Vol-3, Issue-5, 2017
ISSN: 2454-1362, http://www.onlinejournal.in
experienced death in losing her near and dear ones.
To Emily, death is not something unknown as
expressed beautifully by Sylvia Plath in her famous
poem, “Lady Lazarus”
“Dying is an art, like everything else”.
Death, which is the end of life,
seems to attract Emily Dickinson very much. She
believes in the deathlessness of death. She has
always welcomed death. She considers death as an
escape route into the world of eternity. The poem
‘Tie the string to my life, my lord’ (279) is the
finest example, indicating Emily’s love for death.
She is willing to leave her belongings behind and
takes a journey to eternity with the Lord/God.
Death is presented here very pleasant occurrence
because it is portrayed as a journey. The poet like a
mystic has no inclination for the worldly life and is
determined to say goodbye to the life she used to
live in the physical world:
“Good-by to the life I used to lives,
And the world I used to know;
And kiss the hills for me, just once,
Now I am ready to go”.
The poem ‘Death is a Dialogue
between’ (976) analyzes profoundly the spiritual
nature of death. The poem is presented as a
conversation between Dust (human flesh) and
Spirit- the two aspects of human existence. It is
actually the arrival of death that both dust and spirit
get separated. The body mingles with dust and
spirit turns away, leaving behind the body in the
grave as a sign of death. The soul can never be
dissolved, even though it cannot be seen. This
poem is a better effort by Emily Dickinson in order
to analyze fully both the spiritual as well as
physical aspects of death.
Emily’s views about death are
best revealed in her evergreen poem, “Because I
could not stop for Death” (712). The poem reflects
a lucid picture of her communion with death. She
does not fear death but, accepts it as her suitor so
that, she could get rid of the frustration and the
harsh realities of her worldly life. In this very
particular poem, death is not portrayed as
something horrible but, as a gentleman suitor, stops
to pick up the poet and takes her on a ride in his
horse-drawn carriage. It is death that takes one to
eternal life. So there is no reason to be afraid of
death. The poet presents death very friendly with
which she readily leaves. The poet says:
“We slowly drove- He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labour and my leisure too,
For His civility”.
Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR)
During her ride with death, her
mystic nature makes her realize that the grave
which is “A swelling in the Ground” is actually her
perpetual house, her actual destiny. This poem
gives us a clear idea of her acceptance of death as a
concrete fact and a universal truth of which one
should not be afraid. One should not run away from
this cosmic truth rather its inevitability should be
acknowledged.
It is obvious to us now from the
evaluation of the above poems that Emily was in
love with death. She was obsessed with it. The
poem ‘Ample make this bed’ (829) shows her
craving for death. She assumes to be dead in the
near time and wants her mourners to decorate her
grave like her bed, wherein the mattress and the
pillows should be in perfect order. She wants
everything set properly, where she can lie in
comfort and peace. She prefers death over worldly
affairs and events of her mortal life. So for entering
the world of eternity, death and grave are held very
dearer by Emily Dickinson and their importance is
acknowledged by her.
Emily Dickinson was one with
the death. She regards death as the only rescuer
which would liberate the human soul from the
infinite atrocities of life caused by people, diseases,
natural calamities etc. She opines that a tomb is a
safe place, which prevents human mind from the
distractions and horrors created by nature. She
expresses this viewpoint in the poem “The clouds
their backs together laid” (1172):
“How good to be safe in tombs,
Where nature’s temper cannot reach,
Nor vengeance ever comes”.
Emily Dickinson
resembles
Romantics of the 19th century. She sounds like
Wordsworth, Keats and Coleridge. Romantics used
to flee away from the mundane and dull
materialistic life and were taking solace in the lap
of nature. This particular notion of romantics is
called the “escapist notion”. Romantics also find
death as an escape route e.g. John Keats, who tries
to escape the physical problems of the world by
attaining death. These lines from “ode to a
Nightingale” best express Keats’s love for death:
“Darkling I listen, and for may a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath.”
What is our point to discuss romantics here is that
our poet Emily Dickinson too has similar notion
about death. She too views death as an escape route
to avoid the problems of this physical world. Here
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Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR)
Vol-3, Issue-5, 2017
ISSN: 2454-1362, http://www.onlinejournal.in
poem, “I Heard a fly buzz when I died” (465) is the
best example in terms of finding an escape route
through death. The poem presents a dying person,
who is going to leave this world shortly and wants
to enter the world of immortality and eternity, but
is interrupted by the buzzing sound of a fly. It
portrays the pathetic atmosphere of a dying
situation but, for the poet there is nothing pathetic
in dying:
“The eyes besides- had wrung them dryAnd breaths were gathering sure
For that last onset, when the king
Be witnessed in his power.”
Emily
Dickinson
further
expresses her mystical experience of death vividly
in the poem, “I felt a Funeral, in my brain” (280).
In this poem, the poet expresses her fearlessness of
death. The poet imagines her funeral is going on
inside her brain. She dramatizes the whole episode
of funeral. The arrival of mourners at the funeral
makes the poet realize that a drum- beating
ceremony is going on. The poet expresses her inner
turmoil and frustration, which at the time of funeral
is common. She feels inside her brain that “All the
heavens were a bell”, a bell used to announce
someone’s death. She also feels her dead body
taken away by mourners in a coffin and the word
‘creak’ symbolizes her departing soul from its
physical body. This whole dramatization of a
funeral symbolizes the fact that death is a cosmic
truth, of which one should not be afraid. It is just
our mind, our thinking which makes the death a
horrible thing. Otherwise, it is death, which paves
way to the everlasting world of immortality. The
poet through this poem, “I felt a funeral in my
brain” wants to make it clear that once the mind
accepts death as an inevitable truth, death would
not be frightful anymore. Its dreadfulness is just the
creation of our minds. Emily Dickinson here seems
akin to John Milton, who expresses the same view
about the fear of hell in, ‘Paradise Lost’- Book 1:
“The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”
Emily Dickinson holds death
very dear to her. She considers death more
comforting than even sleep. For Emily, sleep
relieves a person from the worldly anxieties and
worries for the time being but, death relieves a
person once and for all and thus grants him the
access to the perpetual world. Emily acknowledges
this fact just in the opening line of the poem
“There’s something quieter than sleep” (45). She
further explains by witnessing a dead body, that
poets can lessen the so- called tragic effect of death
by talking in round- about manner. For example,
Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR)
for ‘Early dead’ poets can ‘Remark that birds have
fled!’. She also attributes one more trait to death by
saying that death brings such a peace that the dead
one seems to be attended by the fairies and the
sobbing if the mourners may scare the fairies and
make them run away:
“I would not weep if I were theyHow rude in one to sob!
Might scare the quiet fairy
Back to her native wood!”
Similarly in the poem, “Dust is
the only secret” (153), Dickinson compares death
with dust. As dust is of no importance, so is the
case with death. Dickinson tries to infuse
fearlessness of death in her readers. She presents
death as nothing, as death’s whereabouts cannot be
traced. Its history cannot be known. No one knows
who it is, where from it is. For these reasons death
should be considered as unimportant and death
should not be afraid. In the final stanza of this
poem Dickinson lessens the importance of death by
comparing it to a bird and the business of death
(taking away of lives) to a bird’s endeavor of
building a nest. However, in the concluding line of
the poem, “Smuggled to rest”, she again stresses
the fact that death brings the perpetual peace and
rest. The same unimportance is preached by John
Donne in the poem, “Death be not proud”.
Emily’s idea of death is that, it is
just a small interval after a short life of mortality to
enter a never ending life of immortality. In fact,
death which is actually the end of life is given a
position of the beginning of life of immortality by
Emily in this poem:
“A death blow is a life- blow to some
Who, till they died, did not alive become;
Who had they lived, had died but when
They died, vitality begun.”(816)
Through this very short poem of
four lines, Dickinson conveys a clear picture of
death. This mortal world and its life involve
nothing worthy but stress, strain, chaos and
confusion, which can be stopped only with the
arrival of death. Death, gives opportunity to renew
one’s energy, vigor and vitality to step into the
everlasting life of immortality.
Thus for
Dickinson, physical death is the beginning, not the
end.
The poem, “After a hundred
years” (1147) reveals vividly Emily Dickinson’s
unique perspective on death. Her notions about
deaths are totally different and aloof. This poem is
about the expressions of people regarding the
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Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR)
Vol-3, Issue-5, 2017
ISSN: 2454-1362, http://www.onlinejournal.in
common experience of death. Again life is
presented as short and death is shown an
acknowledged fact and a familiar activity. The
poem tells about the experience of death by living
people, who with the passage of time forget the
dead ones and even their tombstones. Little by
little, death becomes the memory of all people, just
like the tombstone of the grave becomes gradually
invisible by the overgrown weeds on the grave. By
this poem, Emily succeeds in bringing uniformity
among human beings. She generalizes that death is
going to be the intimate business of every human
being. Thus death becomes a leveler as all human
beings are subjected to lie in the same graveyard.
One more poem which is similar
to the above discussed poem is “Not any higher
stands the grave” (1256). As it is already stated that
Emily Dickinson was obsessed with death, she
views death from every possible way. In this
physical world there is discrimination everywhere
on the basis of region, religion, class, language, sex
etc. Emily expresses the unique trait of death which
is justice and uniformity. It treats all human beings
equally. “The beggar” and the “Queen” are equal
before death. There is no privileged and less
privileged before death. It can only be pleased with
the human life- be it beggar’s or queen’s. This view
is presented in this poem:
“Not any higher stands the grave
For heroes than for man;
Not any nearer for the child
Then number three- score and ten,
This latest leisure equal lulls
The beggar and his queen
Propitiate this democrat.
As summer’s afternoon.”
Another poem, which advocates
the case of death, is “To die- takes just a little
while”(255). The poet here again tries to justify
that death is not at all a painful activity and it does
not take too longer to die. It is a matter of jiffy.
Emily Dickinson tries to present death as a natural
phenomena and not painful at all. Death is not
presented as something horrible:
Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR)
“To die- takes just a little while.
They say it does not hurtAnd then- it’s out of sight”
Conclusion:
From the analysis and evaluation
of the above discussed poems, it is clear that the
way Emily Dickinson was viewing death, is totally
different as it is viewed in the world. She was in
communion with death. Her mystical realization of
death makes her akin to Romantic poets, who too
were viewing death as an escape route to the world
of immortality. She was not known much in her life
time but, she is being read now in the entire world
and her 1775 poems are considered a great asset in
the world of English Literature. Her poems have
been memorized, recited on great occasions,
enjoyed, discussed and taught since their first
publication.
References:

Cash Peter. “Emily Dickinson”. English
Association, University of Leicester, UK,
2010.

Ford T. W. “Heavens Beguiles the Tired:
Death in the poetry of Emily Dickinson”.
University of Alabama Press, 1966.

Johnson H. Thomas. “The Complete
Poems of Emily Dickinson”. Toronto;
Little Brown print, 1960. (The poem
number of the discussed poems is taken
from this book.)

Sewell R. B. “The Life of Emily
Dickinson”. Harvard University Press,
1998.

http:// www. Poetry Foundation. Com/
poem/ Lady-Lazarus.
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