Chapter 5
An Overview
There
is, today,
no doubt that
Dickinson
is
an
established poet of America and one of the greatest
poets in the entire range of English poetry written in
England
and
America.
However,
it
is a
very
arduous
ar
task to indulge in the final evaluation of her genius
as a poet. The task becomes more difficult when we
are informed that she had virtually no mentor of her
poetic capabilities. It was after her absence from this
el
world, that her talent proved to be stronger than the
constraints under which she had to work. The poetry
that she wrote was no mean achievement for a woman
Es
t
guided by her own inborn faculties. She was not a
systematic poet and wrote her poetry on the backs of
envelopes or brown paper bags or even on the scraps
of newspapers. She also wrote on the discarded bills.
These
poems
were,
sister
Lavinia
who
after her
took
great
death,
care
collected by
to
publish
her
them
for the sake of her evaluation as a poet.
The truth is that Dickinson’s poetry is so complex
in its themes, conceptions and responses that it evades
any attempt to make an integrated assessment of her
art. It is excellent no doubt but it is so in parts but
the
totality
of
her
achievements
eludes
us.
It
is
extremely onerous to pass the entire life in isolation
which Emily did. Such a life can be passed only by
saints and sages. Integration with society is extremely
essential to get a balanced outlook and the production
of meaningful poetry. Dickinson, on the contrary, passed
her life in utter isolation and, surprisingly enough, this
life
of
seclusion,
never
left
her
unhappy.
No
poem
written by her gives us an impression of an abiding
grief
through
which
she
had
to
pass.
She
was
confined to her own attic. She was a solitary singer
with no other person to appreciate her efforts. The
she
sang
in
this
terrible
isolation acquaint
ar
songs
with that satisfaction which can
men
and
woman
who,
on
us
be rarely seen in
account
of
diverse
el
circumstances, have to take a voluntary decision to live
away from the events of the society around them. It is
astonishing that Dickinson experienced a typical ecstasy
in such a living. She found, to our surprise, sufficient
Es
t
satisfaction in the mere sense of living
The
total
about
eighteen
desire
to
number
hundred.
of
poems
She
distinguish herself
she
had
as
like a recluse.
wrote
almost
a
poet
no
number
genuine
although
she
made some feeble efforts to learn about the quality of
her poetry. She was satisfied by just sending them to
her
friends
as
gifts.
She
dispatched
some
of
her
poems to Thomas Wentworth Higginson who found them
“too delicate” to be published. This judgement was one
of the many serious errors made about a woman who,
a few years after her death, came to be recognized as
a major American poet.
As
her
poems
indicate,
her
significant
life
was
interior. She had no circle of admirers and almost none
from
whom
she
could expect
an
appraisal
of
her
poems. Her letters, however, introduced to us the mind
of the poet. It was Thomas H. Johnson who discovered
the
hidden
talent
of
this
poet
and
took
pains
to
publish a complete and scholarly edition of her poems
in three volumes in 1955 without any change in her
capitalization and punctuation. It can be estimated that
amidst her isolation, she constantly grew as a poet on
of
the
deep
regard
she
received
ar
account
from
her
brother William Austin Dickinson.
It was from her brother that Emily learned the
el
gift of good taste and earnestness in the enjoyment
of poetry and music. It was he who was a genuine
admirer of the poetic talent of his sister. Dickinson’s
younger
sister
Lavinia
was
another
source
of
Es
t
inspiration. It was she who managed the publication of
Dickinson’s poems after her death. Sue, the wife of
her brother and also a great friend of Dickinson, was
also responsible to keep her poetic fire alive. She was
a very dependable friend of Dickinson with whom she
shared the burden of her heart. It was she who was
fortunate
poems.
enough to see
Since
Dickinson
Whitman, Emerson,
the
largest number
maintained
Longfellow,
a
Whittier,
of her
distance
from
Holmes
and
Bryant, they took no interest in applauding her genius
as a poet. This also happened with A. E. Housman who
was
too
reserved
to
discuss
his
poetry with
others.
The story of Mirza Ghalib is also the story of rivalry
and isolation.
The fact that genuine talent can not be obscured
has
to
every
be accepted
by
indifference
all
and,
as
such,
shown towards
inspite
her,
her
of
own
deliberate designs to keep herself shrouded in mystery,
Dickinson, with
the
passage
of
time,
attracted
the
precious attention of reviewers and scholars, and today
she is established as a poet second to none and also
ar
the greatest poet of the United States of America.
It is not only difficult but also a challenging task
to estimate the position of a poet, particularly one,
el
who had to face some very ironic judgements in her
time. The story of her assessment as an American poet
started after the publication of her poems in 1955.
There
have
and,
critics
on the
Es
t
prosody
been
critics
who found
achievement
in
other
the
the
who
found
hand,
measure
best
of
of her
faults
there
have
excellence
poems.
with her
been
of
her
Critics
like
Robert Spiller have appreciated the intensities of her
despair
and
exultation.
Clare
Griffith finds
an
identification between her tragic insights and ours. At
best, Dickinson is a poet of tragic consciousness and,
in this regard, she has been compared to Sophocles and
William Shakespeare. The conclusion of Griffith may not
be acceptable to many of her critics but a scholar is
independent
views.
It
enough
is
to
undeniable
Walt Whitman and
deconstruct
that
two
and articulate
American
his
poets―
Dickinson are today discussed as
the greatest poets of America.
How
to judge
the
position
of
Dickinson
as
a
poet? It is difficult to say which of the two English
dramatists― John Galsworthy or George Bernard Shaw
is greater. There is difference of opinion among the
critics
on
the
issue.
Similarly,
it
is
difficult to
pronounce an all acceptable judgement on the genius
of Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy or the
Tennyson
and Robert
Browning.
An
ar
of
poetry
isolated
judgement in favour or disfavour is too subjective to
offer us a guideline and, as yet, we have to go by
what
an
individual
critic
says.
Bruce
King,
after
el
writing Modern Indian Poetry in English ( O. U. P. 1987)
had to write another book Three Indian Poets (O. U. P.
1996)
just
to
tell
the world
about
the
Es
t
outstanding Indian poets in English. He
the
names
of Shiv
K. Kumar,
Jayant
three
most
had to drop
Mohapatra and
Kamala Das. He just concentrated on Nissim Ezekiel, A. K.
Ramanujan
and
Dom
Moraes.
He
called
these
three
poets “the best, the best known and most significant
Indian poets who write in English”.
Even Arvind Krishna
Mehrotra, who had brought out his own anthology of
Indian English poets, recommended Bruce King’s book as
the only critical book on this subject.
Dickinson,
though
little
concerned
with
the
external world of Civil War and growing materialism,
was sufficiently interested in the acts of bravery and
courage. This aspect of her personality made her write
poetry
celebrating
the
acts
of
valour.
Although
a
recluse, she was vibrant enough to the demands of heroism.
This aspect of her personality and the poems written
in this regard also establish her as a poet. She was
not an escapist although devoid of
any interest in
the
her
political
and
social
events
of
time.
The
measure of excellence of her success as a poet is to
be found in the best of her poems that deal with the
vicissitudes of life, with God, with Heaven and Hell.
she
inspire our insight.
ar
Her poems evoke us and
was
confronted
Although
with her personal tensions,
she
collected comfort in creating inspirational poems that
el
also offer us various messages. She had a disliking for
cowardice and preferred courageous preparations likely
to distinguish her vision of heroic performances. This is
evident
from
her
poems
in which
she
differentiates
Es
t
between a coward and a brave person. She has written:
A coward will remain, Sir,
Until the fight is done;
But an immortal hero
Will take his hat and run!
Good bye, Sir, I am going;
My country calleth me;
Allow me, Sir, at parting,
To wipe my weeping e’e.
The
honourable
lines
in
another
position as
a
(CP 6)
poem
poet.
She
point
led
out
a
life
her
of
obscurity but she remained conscious of the glory in
her inner room. She could visualise the colour of spring
in her secluded chamber. She was a recluse but not
morose. There is a touch of melancholy overpowered by
her
instinctive courage
with which
she
faced
the
alternations of life. She was not confined to the land
of
Lotus
Eaters never
atmosphere. These
prepared to leave
lotus Eaters
were
the drowsy
exhausted
with
their journey of the sea with their hero Ulysses but
Dickinson never took the conclusive decision to lead a
ar
life of indolence and this disposition of hers makes her
relevant even today. This is evident from the following
lines:
el
There’ s something quieter than sleep
Within this inner room!
It wears a spring upon its breast ―
And will not tell its name.”
(CP 25)
Es
t
“Quieter than the sleep” is the experience of a
brave
soul and
this
brave
soul
tells
us
about
her
present position as a poet. Dickinson also thought of
“robbing
the
woods”,
“the
trusting
woods”,
“the
unsuspecting trees” which brought out their “burns and
mosses”.
those
The
poem, Success
who never
succeed
is
is
counted
also
a
sweetest
realistic
by
poem
invoking men to continue their efforts to fight against
the odds of life. This poem also acquaints us with her
present position as a poet who never sang of defeat
but of constant efforts against defeat and failures.
The
present
position
of
Dickinson
can
also
be
estimated by a large number of books devoted not only
to the complexities of her personality but also to the
extension of her subjects. Although strictly confined to
the four walls of her chamber, she wrote about death
without any fear in her mind. The treatment of this
subject was sportive. Walt Whitman, John Keats and
Lord Tennyson
emphatic
also
about
wrote
about
death.
the ephemeral
They
nature
were
of
human
existence. They were, as a matter of fact, frightened
by death defeating all human hopes and aspirations but
attitude
of
Dickinson
about
death
is
ar
the
entirely
different from theirs. She mused about death, watched
the tragic end of life with exemplary detachment and
recorded
her
observations
with
an absolute
el
has
veracity. Death did not shake her confidence in life
because she has also sung of Immortality. There is no
doubt that she had an early acquaintance with death
Es
t
and had witnessed it from the Pleasant Street where
she watched the funeral processions of Amherst. The
death of her friend Sophia Holland left her melancholic.
She saw the death of her parents. They were the old
diseased parents nursed by her. She also witnessed the
death
of many
relatives
and
friends including
Holland, Samuel Bowles, Benjamin Newton and
J. G.
Charles
Wadsworth. The death of her nephew Gilbert caused a
grief from
which
she
recovered
very
late. The
most
notable feature of the psyche of Dickinson was that
she did not consider death a bugbear to terrify a man.
She
considered it
as
the
final
end
of
the
sad
existence on this earth. She considered tomb a place
of permanent rest.
Dickinson
was
of
the
view
that
man’s
life
in
tombs is safe because here the temper of nature can
not react nor vengeance exhibit its drama. This is why,
she has written:
’Tis not Dying that hurts us so―
’Tis Living ― hurts us more ―
But Dying ― is a different way ―
(CP 158)
ar
A Kind behind the Door ―
Not only this, she glorified death in her own peculiar
manner:
el
If this is “fading”
Oh let me immediately “fade”!
If this is “dying”
Bury me, in such a shroud of red!
Es
t
If this is “sleep”
On such a night
How proud to shut the eye!
(CP 56)
The Indian saints and sages like Kabir Das were
established poets
were
always
of
their
conscious
time
of the
chiefly
because
inevitability
of
they
death.
After all, death is the only reality of life and one
who writes about death easily establishes his position
as
a
poet.
Does
such
an
attitude
towards
life
not
establish Dickinson as a poet? Does it not place her
above the romantic life of love between a man and
woman? There have been poets like William Wordsworth
and
Coleridge
consider
death
who
as
were
a
not
comfortable
courageous enough
end
of
life
to
to
be
followed by a better one. Gray’s Elegy Written in a
Country Churchyard is a great poem about death and it
has immortalised him in the history of English poetry.
Such an
original thought about the so-called dread of
death established Dickinson as a poet quite different
from others. It certainly makes her superior to many
English and American poets. Walt Whitman, Longfellow,
Dickinson
great
Bryant
and,
poets.
as
Their
Dickinson.
did
not
write
such, they
are
about death
not
position
is
inferior
like
established
as
to
of
ar
Whittier and
that
el
Dickinson’s position on the basis of her thoughts
on death makes her position as a poet envious. Salamat
Ullah Khan, in his prestigious book
poetry : The
Flood
Subjects (Aarti
Emily Dickinson’s
Book
Centre,
New
Es
t
Delhi, 1969) has highlighted this aspect of her poetry.
He has accordingly considered her the most gifted poet
among her contemporaries. Dickinson has written about
love but this is a very common subject and writing
poems
on
love rarely
establishes
a
poet.
In
Hindi,
Harivansh Rai Bachchan wrote Madhushala and Gopal Das
Neeraj wrote hundreds of poems on the subject of love
but
their
position
in
the
history
of
Indian
Hindi
poetry is not very great. Sahir Ludhianvi has written
on the tragic aspects of life and he is remembered as
a great poet of the Hindi Cinema world. We shall have
to admit that Dickinson’s position as a poet has been
established
chiefly on
account
with the subject of death.
of
her pre-occupation
The
creditable
ascertained
position
by the
fact
of
that
Dickinson
Stephen
can
Crane,
be
William
Catcher, John Steinbeck, John Updike, lrving Babbit are
not
yet
established
as
estimable men
in
their
own
respective fields. Their position is inferior to that of
Dickinson.
them,
They
have,
not written
without
on
any
elemental
prejudice
subjects
like
against
Heaven,
ar
Hell, Death, Immortality and God. In addition to these
subjects, Dickinson has also written very realistically on
the subject of love although she had little experience of
el
this great human emotion. She also wrote on Nature, a
subject which can not be easily neglected. Nature for
her
is
the symbol
exhaustively
of
on the
death.
She has
features and
also
written
peculiarities
of
Es
t
Immortality which gave her the best type of comfort
in her life of anguish. She considered death as the
gateway to Immortality. There is
philanthropy
in
poetry
metaphysical
realism.
Her
alongwith symbolism
poetry
experiences.
is
She
and
replete
has
also
with
written
on
her
the
her
personal
existence
of God like a theist and also like an atheist. Although
she
had an inner
belief in the existence of God, she
wrote about Him with impiety, ridicule and disbelief.
She did not become a member of the Church but she
could never successfully lose her faith in the family
Puritanism.
personal
She,
under
hesitations, could
the
influence
regret
the
of
her
own
loss
of
faith
without frankly rewarding such a blatant disbelief:
Those ― dying then,
Knew where they went ―
They went to God’s Right Hand―
That Hand is amputated now
And God can not be found ― (CP 646)
The belief contradicted by a casual disbelief is the
central feature of Dickinson’s poetry as is illustrated
by the following lines:
ar
I know that He exists,
Somewhere in Silence―
He has hid his rare life
This
(CP 160)
el
From our gross eyes.
is
the
swinging between
approach
of
an
intelligent
belief and disbelief.
But,
person
above
all,
Dickinson was a believer as has been illustrated by a large
Es
t
number of her poems. There is another poem which, once
more, illustrates her faith in the Supreme Power, the great
Saviour of those who find no way to escape from the crimes
committed by them and this God is benevolent and forgiving.
The lines given below contradict Dickinson’s scepticism. She
has written with confidence in the mercy of God:
Of God we ask one favor,
That we may be forgiven ―
For what, he is presumed to know ―
The Crime, from us, is hidden ―
Dickinson
puzzles
us
when she
contradictory manner:
God is indeed is jealous God ―
He can not bear to see
That we had rather not with Him
(CP 662)
says
in
a
But with each other play.
(CP 698)
However, Dickinson’s faith in God and Immortality
has gone to establish her as a great poet with her
enviable
position
in literature.
Her
wavering
faith
in
God was ultimately defeated by her sense of reverence.
This is why, she wrote in the final manner:
Please God, might I behold him
epauletted
I should
while ―
ar
In
not
fear
the foe
then ―
I should not fear the fight!
(CP 70)
el
In the lines quoted above, “foe” stands for death
and the word “fight” means the disheartening fear of
death.
Such
about
her
view expressed
position
Browning
as
were
Es
t
Robert
a
a
by
poet
established
Dickinson
as John
as
tells
Milton
us
and
great
poets for
has
also been
their strong faith and belief.
Dickinson’s position
as
a
poet
established by the numerous qualities of her poetry. As
observed
by
significant
Egbert S.
poets
Oliver,
rises above
“Emily
like
the confines
other
of
a
generation and finds her habitat in more durable and
pervasive observance and response”.
(306)
Dickinson’s position as a great American poet is
beyond any doubt. She has written with a very rich
imagination and with the aids of her meditative nature.
She
has
written
on
great
subjects
like
life,
death,
Immortality, nature and love. It would not be wrong to
say that it is on the subject of love that she has
written
with
her
best
interest.
This
aspect
of
her
poetry has been noticed
critics. In the opinion
most
recurring
by many erudite scholars and
of
R. K. Agrawal, “Love is the
emotional
theme
in Dickinson.
Perhaps
her unfulfilled emotional life made her comprehend the
meaning and significance of love more acutely than any
other poet”.
R. K.
(221)
Agrawal,
in
his
illustrious
study
of
the
ar
poetic genius of Dickinson, emphatically says that after
the publication of her poems and letters in 1955 and
1958
respectively,
her
poetic
talent “has
increasingly
el
drawn the attention of the scholars who have examined
the various aspects of her poetry, and have explored
it from different angles”.
(1)
He also tells us about Charles Anderson’s study
Es
t
of Dickinson’s poetry made in 1960. The critical study
made by Anderson was regarded by T. H. Johnson as “a
companion piece and capstone to my editions”.
(qtd. in
Agrawal 1)
One
great
feature
of
Dickinson’s
poetry
appreciated by scholars like Joseph Lyman reveals
us
the
poet’s great emphasis on Truth which she has
called “as old as
poetry
truths”.
to
constantly
God”. According to Allen
moves
with
an absolute
Tate
“Her
order
of
(157)
Critics,
like
Richard Wilbur,
Ruth
Miller,
James
Reeves, Richard B Sewall and Sirkka Heiskanen- Makola,
as
mentioned
by
R. K.
Agrawal,
tell
us
about
her
concern for communicative truth which was her “deepest
experience
of
life”.
This
fondness
for
truth was
a
singular
feature
responsible
century.
Bible
for
her
Dickinson’s
great
Dickinson was
and
helped
of
Thomas
her
in
position
very much
De
poetry
Quincy
making
her
in
the
chiefly
twentieth
influenced
and
by
these two
poetry
a
the
forces
sample
of
significantly developing talent which remained unnoticed
her lifetime.
incongruities
some
It
and
peculiar
is
creditable
apparent
that
in spite
inconsistencies,
ar
in
colour
in
her
manner
there
of thinking.
of
is
Her
paradoxical vision is undoubtedly “an essential part of
el
her poetic mode and strategy”. These two things have
strongly contributed to her fervent appeal
as a poet
in this century.
It shall not be out of context if Dickinson is
to another
Es
t
compared
Kamala
Das.
Both
woman
of
poet
of
India
them are known as
named
illustrious
women poets. There is as unresolved despair and revolt
in Dickinson as it is in the poetry of Kamala Das. The
despair
of
Dickinson
Kamala
is
Das
shrouded
is
very
in
vocal
her
while
that
symbolism
of
and
contradiction. She is many times full of fury which is
not a feature of the poetry of Dickinson. Kamala Das
cries while Dickinson is silent against the onslaughts on
her emotions. Dickinson narrates her misery in unequivocal
terms.
Kamala Das says:
O sea, I am fed up
I want to be loved
And if love is not to be had
I want to be dead. (2)
Dickinson was also disappointed in love although
she always kept it a secret. Those who have written
about her love affairs have just conjectured or have
taken the clues from her letters. There are glimpses in
her poetry which secretly throw light on her despair
caused by her failures in love. She says:
ar
My wheel is in the dark!
I can not see a spoke
Yet know its dripping feet
el
Go round and round.
My foot is on the Tide!
An unfrequented road ―
Es
t
Yet have all roads
A clearing at the end ― (CP 10)
This
situation,
clearing
her poise
was
and
her
compromise
balance
in
the
with
the
absence of
continuation. Dickinson further says:
If those I loved were lost
The Crier’s voice would tell me ―
Of those I loved were found
The bells of Ghent would ring ―
(CP 19)
Kamala Das was betrayed by her husband. She was
also tortured by him. This is why, her poetry is mainly
autobiographical. It is also confessional. Dickinson also
had some deep personal experience of love which has
given ecstasy to her lyrics. The poem The Soul selects
her own Society
is autobiographical
suggesting
one
to
whom she had probably pledged an exclusive devotion.
Her love poems are dominated by a haunting sense of
anguish
on
account
of
the
termination
of
love, a
feature also of the life of Kamala Das. The lover who
influenced her life might be Newton, Rev. Wadsworth
or
Otis P. Lord,
Unfortunately,
he
the
became
friend
a
of
widower
her
and
father.
turned
in
ar
friendship to Dickinson during the last decade of her
life. The friendship ripened into love but the pattern
of
her
retirement
did
not
allow
the
formidable
el
adjustment needed for a matrimonial alliance. Although
Kamala Das is vociferous, Dickinson is reticent but their
position as great poets is largely the result of their
romantic temperament– one of them a revolutionary and
other
a
recluse
Es
t
the
who
stifled
her
emotions
and
devoted herself to the art of poetry without walking
on the road of frustrations and disappointments visible
to others.
Dickinson’s position as a poet is unique. So far as
her popularity is concerned, she is as popular as Walt
Whitman. She is known for the treatment of various
themes which are the concern of every sensible man.
Her genius as a poet was, to a large extent shaped by
Benjamin F. Newton who was a great thinker and very
well acquainted with contemporary literature. It was he
who exposed her to the world of thought. He gave her
a
copy
of
R.W.
Emerson’s
poems.
These
poems
gave
her the liberating thought of self-reliance. As has been
observed by Lucky Gupta, it was Emerson from whom
she
learned
tradition,
“the
and
stress
the
on
concept
personal experience
of
poet
as
over
‘seer’”.
The
Poems of Emerson provoked her poetic ambitions and
gave her the support and encouragement to lead that
lonely life she chose. According to Lucky Gupta:
Newton not only showed her intellectual and
spiritual horizons that were beyond her limited
ar
experience but also encouraged her in writing
and apparently let her realize that she could
become
a
great poet. After his death in
el
1853, . . . she acknowledged her great debt to
him.
(13)
There is no denying that the poetry she wrote
was no mean achievement for a woman who was solely
by
her
inborn faculties
Es
t
guided
rather
than
by
the
heritage of a tradition. Some of her poems suffer from
mediocrity
of
technique,
expression
and
content, the
best of her poetry is second to that of none. The
measure
of excellence
of
her
achievement
is
to
be
found in the best of her poems. Her poetry, it would
be wrong to suppose, is merely a record of her inner
suffering, a mere effusion of her personal grief.
Dickinson’s
love
poetry
was
perhaps
based
on
factual experiences but she saved her love poems from
becoming mere shrieks of passion. She transformed the
emotion
of
commonplace
love
into philosophic
human
attachments,
poetry.
that
It
was
Dickinson
in
saw
the tragic involvement of man and his blighted hopes.
She was of the view that all attachments have to
end in dissolution. We find in Dickinson’s poetics and
poetry
a
confluence
of
tradition,
a
contemporary
movement, and also a future trend.
Dickinson,
judged
today,
is
one
of
those
few
literary artists who have both tantalized and inspired
the critics. She devoted herself to poetry as a sage
himself
to
artist,
very
conscious
meditation. Dickinson
particular
about
was
her
a
poems.
ar
devotes
Though there is ambiguity and obscurity in her poetry,
this is so because she did not want to be plain and
There
are
el
straight in her expression.
contradictions
in
her poetry and these contradictions are there because
she used to judge things with the touchstone of her
own
understanding.
unusual,
Es
t
revolutionary,
Her
poetry,
orthodox,
as
such,
appears
novel, rebellious
but
original. She took time to mature herself. She was in
the
habit
diction.
of
She
flouting
was
rules of
fond
of
rhyme,
capitalization
prosody
and
and employed
subtle technical innovations. Her employment of imagery
and
symbols
make
the
abstract
her
to the
craft
unique.
She
concretizes
desired
effect.
Her
words
are
charged with energy and meaning.
Dickinson always endeavoured to find apt phrases,
felicity
of words,
words
in
constant
When
subtle
metaphors
an unusual manner.
companion
studies
of
denounced
her
incorrigible
grammar.
and
her
for
the
poetry
her
She
the
Dictionary
results were
started,
erratic
was
and
also
use
was
of
her
rewarding.
the
critics
punctuation
censured
for
and
an
unnecessary use of dashes and unwanted capital letters.
This clearly shows her intellectual arrogance and sense
of
revolt.
But,
Dickinson
did
not
prefer
to write
according to the Victorian traditions. As a poet, she
was much
ahead of
her
time. This
is
been,
many scholars,
appreciated
as
by
why,
she has
modern
poet.
She made her own experiments to distinguish herself as
new
type
of
poet.
Whitman did
not
ar
a
do
this.
Dickinson is also known for the utmost precision in her
verse. There is, in Dickinson’s poetry, an apparent lack
el
of melody on account of the odd use of rhyme but
there is an artistic significance. She has also observed
the principle of economy in words. In order to convey
her meanings, she employs cryptic phrases. She probably
Es
t
felt that the most true emotion is best communicated
through
a
terse
expression.
Her
favourite
device
is
paradox which is employed to convey the disharmonies
of
life.
Another
symbolism.
She
salient
did
feature
not
have
of
basic
her
poetry
similarities
is
with
Wordsworth or Coleridge. Her romantic tendencies made
her a rebel and she rebelled against dogma and form.
Hence there is an obvious sense of revolt in most of
her poetry.
Dickinson
was
Authorised Version
Shakespeare.
limitations
They
as
a
very
much
of
the
shaped
poet
influenced
Bible
her language.
might
be,
she
and
by
The
William
Whatever
her
has certainly
emerged as a great American poet much ahead of her
period. She is novel, individualistic and very original.
Her persistent devotion to poetry in a very miserable
life
illustrates
the strength
of
her
will.
She
is
not
only a great American poet but also excelled Elizabeth
Barret Browning and Christina Rossetti.
As
poets,
it
ordinarily
happens
Thomas Hardy
and
so
with
many
poets (Georgian
others)
Dickinson
was unluckily not discovered during her own time. The
ar
things are quite different today when the critics have
realised that “she had an immense breadth of vision
and
a
passionate
intensity
and
awe
for
life,
love,
el
nature, time and eternity. She is now recognised as a
major American
poet
of
great
depth,
startling
originality and courage.
Dickinson
can
never
be
properly
understood
Es
t
without a perfect knowledge of her biographical details;
the chief of which is her very strong deliberation to
cut herself from the world. She wrote to Higginson
that to live is so startling that it leaves but little
room
for
other
occupations. She
also
wrote
that
a
letter was always felt by her like Immortality because
“it is the mind alone without corporeal friend”. Her
withdrawal made it possible for her to comprehend life
more fully and with greater concentration of purpose.
Once Higginson questioned her about her reclusive
life. In answer to the question, Dickinson answered she
had done that to shun men and women because they
talk of hallowed things aloud and embarrass her dog.
This shunning left her with only those things which
mattered most to her, her family, friends and books.
No last word can be said about the position of
Dickinson
as a poet. She is today a perfect artist, a
great lyricist. She has deftly treated the subject of
romanticism contrary to her reserved nature. In many
of her poems, she has done her best to investigate
the nature of pain and its impact on the human soul.
She measured every grief she met. She was conscious
her poetry
appreciable
has
ar
of the essential nature of pain and this feature of
granted
grandeur.
She
to her
was, like
composition
Robert
Frost
an
and
the
el
Philip Larkin, a poet of human predicament and realised
fact that:
For each ecstatic instant
We must an anguish pay
Es
t
In keen and quivering ratio
to the ecstacy.
(CP 58)
She further says:
To
fight aloud, is very brave ―
But gallanter, I know
Who charge within the bosom
The Cavalry of Woe ―
(CP 59)
Dickinson liked a look of agony because she knew
its truth. She was also of the view that:
Power is only Pain―
Stranded, thro’ Discipline.
In
the
present
age,
Dickinson
(CP 115)
is
remembered
as
one possessing astonishing integrity and originality. She
was
also
given to metaphysical speculation and ironic
interpretation in her poetry. Her poetry is reflective and
meditative. Critics have found her affinity with R. W.
Emerson and the transcendentalists. In one manner, she
was a metaphysical poet influenced by the school of
John Donne.
Is Dickinson a modern poet? She is so although
she belongs to the nineteenth century. Egbert S. Oliver
has remarked:
twentieth
ar
She can be compared with the poets of the
century
imagination,
her use
qualities.
of
her
detail,
her
half
rhymes
and
But withal,
el
dissonant
in
she
is
Emily
Dickinson belonging to no school, followed by
no
disciples,
friend
of
no
literary coteries
who wrote her poems as she lived her life in
individuality,
Es
t
extreme
surrounded
conventionality.
and
at
the
partly
She rose
to
same
time
bound
by
such
undoubted
excellence in her poetic achievement as some
of her finest poems dictate.
( 306)
The poetry of anguish has always won over the
poetry of joy. This fact is illustrated by the poetry
of Thomas Hardy, A. E. Housman and that of John Keats.
In Hindi, it is Mahadevi Verma who has been acclaimed
as a great poet of pain. It has been remarked:
Her
poetry
reveals
an
agonizing
sense
of ironic
contrasts, of the weight of suffering, of the human
predicament in
which man is mocked,
destroyed,
and
beckoned to some incomprehensible repose. She shows a
keen sense of the limit of reason, order and justice in
human
as
herself
well
as
divine relationships.
be
an
existentialist
to
transcendentalism.
in
She
a
shows
period of
(Gelpi 119)
The quality of Dickinson as a poet is that she
always asserts
that
neither
intuition
nor
reason
can
solve the riddle of existence. “She is sensitive enough
to assess the problem of anxiety and loneliness, the
(Mitchell 233)
ar
extremity of pain and its duration.”
It is not without substance in
her poetry that
Dickinson has been able to enjoy the position of a
American
poet.
She
wrote
on
various
aspects
el
great
including the activities of nature. The distinction lies
in the fact that she considered nature to be happier
than man. A little stone, in her view, is much happier
Es
t
than a man. Contrary to man’s cares about rising high
and
fearing exigencies,
apprehension.
following
This
the
idea
has
stone
been
is
free
illustrated
from
in
the
poem:
How happy is the little Stone,
That rambles in the Road alone,
And doesn’t care about Careers
And exigencies never fears— (CP 634)
Unlike Wordsworth, she did not write the poems
like Tables Turned,
Three
years
she
grew
and The
Prelude but she has shown liking for the frogs, the
bog, the moss and the frost, she was not aware of
the fact that in nature too, there is a struggle for
survival. The poems
creatures― an angle―
A bird came down a walk, The three
worm, a bird and a beetle
are
engaged in the war of survival. Dickinson did not care
for nature that is red in “tooth and claw”. Dickinson’s
treatment of nature is an expansion of her observation
which adds to her position as a poet. She was also in
love with melancholy illustrated by various poems like I
like a look of agony and I can wade grief.
She has written:
ar
I can wade Grief —
Whole Pools of it —
I’m used to that —
el
But the least Push of joy
Breaks up my feet —
And I tip ― drunken —
(CP 115)
Emily also considered power as the cause of pain
delight
Es
t
and considered
for
its
flight.
She was
as
so
something
much
transitory
terrified
ready
with
pain
that “She felt a funeral in her brain” and “Mourners to
and fro”. She was wise enough to experience poverty
from
riches.
This
is
why,
she
preferred
being alone
from the world that is full of devastating noises. She
realistically wrote:
The Soul selects her own Society—
Then ― shuts the Door
To her divine Majority —
Present no more —
The
miseries
of
life
(CP 143)
unnerved
her
and
so
said:
Some keep the Sabbath going to Church—
I keep it, staying at Home—
she
With a Bobolink for a Chorister —
And an orchard for a Dome —
But
the
poet
had
a
great
(CP 153)
moral
courage
to
pronounce:
No Rack can torture me —
My Soul — at Liberty —
Behind this mortal Bone
(CP 183)
ar
There knits a bolder One —
Dickinson’s meditative nature taught her that:
There is a Languor of the life
el
More imminent than Pain —
’Tis Pain’s Successor — When the Soul
Has suffered all it can —
Long
from
was established.
now, Dickinson’s
This
Es
t
poet
back
(CP 188)
is
position
testified
by
as
a
countless
research projects undertaken by the scholars interested
in her poetry. There is a great variety in her poetry
and
there
shall
exploration of
always
remain
a
scope for
fresh
her poetry.
It is Thomas H. Johnson who established her as a
major American poet. Not that she was not a great
poet
before
observed
by
the services
an
of
Johnson.
As
has
eminent critic, “Nevertheless,
been
their
durability – their modernity or, perhaps, their eternality
–
has
proven
sufficient
to
sustain
them;
and
they
have been admired by a vast number of widely diverse
twentieth — century artists.”
( Ferlazzo 143)
A comparative study of the poems of Dickinson
and modern American poems discloses that most of the
existential problems
that
tormented
Dickinson are
engaging the minds of the American poets today. These
problems
are
the
problems
nature’s
indifference
to
of
pain, and
the
lot
of
suffering,
man,
man’s
insignificance and the mysteriousness of the universe,
of
death, Immortality , eternity
rejection
of
and
Christianity and
God.
her
Dickinson’s
affirmation
of
ar
universal brotherhood and also the recognition of the
self of every body are major pre-occupations of modern
American poets. The ideas of American poets have also
el
been shared by Dickinson, most particularly her concern
with man’s
destiny.
It
search
was
for
self
Dickinson’s
and
patience
his
tryst
and
with
his
fortitude,
her
Es
t
unwavering faith in the merit of her work that has
granted her an honourable position today in the history
of world poetry. It is not correct to say that she
was
utterly
uninterested
in
the
publication
of
her
poems. She actually made two major efforts to achieve
status in her own lifetime. She wanted to be known
as a professional poet but she failed. Those who could
help her in this direction proved disappointing. But she
did
not
lose
courage.
As
has
been authoritatively
remarked by Ruth Miller:
Despite
which
her
present
almost
failure
engulfed
remained unshaken
in
and
a
despair
her,
Emily
Dickinson
her
assessment
of
herself as a great poet. She merely renounced
hope
. . .
She
could
not
easily dismiss
the
fact
of
her
withstood
spirit.
Although
failure
the
but
misery
she
that
withstood
preyed
on
it,
her
(4)
Dickinson had an eccentric vision but it
was “enriched by a variety of imagery and an exotic
quality of imagination. She was concerned more with
thought
and
mood
than with
technique.
She
was
her poetry.”
When
ar
prodigal of the metaphor, the characteristic feature of
(Goodman 252)
Dickinson’s
poems
first
came
before
the
el
scholars of poetry, they were disapproved as unpoetical.
They were also not recommended for want of clarity.
As a matter of fact, the critics found it difficult to
deconstruct
them
and
then
appreciate
their quality.
Es
t
Later on, things changed and the poet was, by and
by, considered worthy of the best attention that could
be
given
to
her. When
disappointed
in
her
own
life
time with the reaction showed by Higginson, it was in
the
privacy
of
her
room
that
Dickinson
strove
for
Immortality as a poet. How? It was a big question
before her but she did hard labour and managed what
she sincerely
desired.
It
has
been
reported
by
Ruth
Miller that a regular practice of the art of poetry bore
favourable results. The great scholar has observed:
She
practised
commitment,
creating
the
her
seeking out
precise
with metre
and
length.
refined
She
craft
with
the
scrupulous
exact
word,
metaphor, experimenting
rhyme
a
and syntax and line
meticulous
form
that
was
to
become
manner
a
unique
altogether at
style,
home
in
a
poetic
the twentieth
century. She refined her thought and feelings
about
herself
in
experimenting
speculating
a
with
about
transient
ideas
and
Nature
and
world,
attitudes,
Time
and
Heaven, until she arrived at a synthesis of
that
heart
or
could not
illuminated
contemporaries.
is
comforted
the
the
mind
her
difficult
of
(5)
to anticipate
how
el
It
have
ar
belief
hard
Dickinson
worked to achieve her objective. She not only wrote
poems in a distinctive manner but also read and reread
them.
also scrutinized
image”.
Es
t
“meaningful
She
subliminal
ideas”.
She
utterance
Recognition
not
although,
was
unluckily,
an
she
for
the
also contemplated “their
Higginson
“Unconventional
them
called
of
easy
could
the
daring
affair
get it
poems
thoughts”.
for
only
Dickinson
after
her
death. Ruth Miller has again observed:
The
world
Dickinson
chose
was
poems
that
proved
a tragic sufferer,
Emily
a Puritan,
a
Transcendentalist, a social satirist, a Gnostic,
a homosexual,
a
maiden
suffering
from
Electra complex, and an Existentialist.
The
position
of
Dickinson
as
a
an
(29)
poet
has
augmented because it has been found out that there is
certainly an element of modernity in her poetry. She
did not accept conventionalism about heaven and even
about God whom she called her “Burglar, Banker and
Father”. Like the modern man’s restlessness, Dickinson
remained busy in her search of spiritual faith. The two
contrary themes
of
realism
and
mysticism
are
found
together in her poetry. On the on e hand, she was a
recluse but, on the other hand, she had a great love
for
life.
For
her,
the
mere
sense
of
living
was
this
earth, she
could
otherworldliness
people
of
she
not
be
religion.
examined
and
around
appraisal.
her
and
of
by
the
devoted
to
scrutinized
objects
and
tried
The technique
lured
Like one
el
modernity,
ar
sufficient to give her joy. Since she was in love with
to
make
Dickinson’s
a
correct
poetry
is also
modern. She has used antithetical words and phrases.
style
distinguishes
Es
t
Her
These
things
help
her
from
in
understanding
us
her
contemporaries.
her present
position as a poet.
Dickinson
poetry
rendered
by rejecting
a
the
great
puerile
service
the Transcendentalists.
deluded by
the
also
not
fascinated
American
sentimentality
romantics,
false
to
She
was
optimistic philosophies.
by
the
beauty
of
and
the
never
She
bounty
was
of
nature. Like Robert Frost, she also viewed that it is
not wise
we
are
to
seek
communication
all destined
to
live
with
alone
in
nature
this
because
vast
and
unintelligible universe. As a modern poet, she has been
compared
with
Theodore
Roethke
Wallace
and
Stevens, Robinson
Allen
Ginsburg.
Jeffers,
There
is
universality in her poetry because she again and again
strikes
us as
position
a
as a
poet
of
great poet
the
tragic
man.
of
America
Dickinson’s
is
very
well
attested by the tributes paid to her by the poets and
poet-critics
of
America.
Among
those
who
have
acknowledged her influence include Louise Bogan, John
Ciardi, Gregory
Corose,
Hart
Crane,
Amy
Lowell,
Carl
Sandburg, Richard Wilbur and Yvor Winters. The list has
of
provided by Paul J. Ferlazzo, a
profound
scholar
ar
been
the
poetry of America and one who has written
authoritatively on Dickinson. He has remarked:
el
Emily Dickinson has appealed to poets of all
persuasions from every decade of this century.
In fact, her influence
parts
besides
such as
Es
t
composers
the
has extended to other
literary
Aaron
since
renowned
Copland
and
Ned
Rorem have set her poems to music and since
Martha
Graham,
choreographed a
the
great
performance
modern
dancer,
based
on
the
poet’s life. (143)
As
pointed
out
by
Ferlazzo,
Amy
Lowell
“recognized her as a predecessor of modern poetry and
as a forerunner of Imagism”.
There
of
made
is
a great
appreciation
Dickinson as a poet in
by
Ammy
(145)
Lowell , “I
the
of
the
conclusive
refer to Emily
worth
remark
Dickinson
who is so modern that if she were living today, I
know just the group of poets with whom she would
inevitably belong”. (qtd. in Ferlazzo 145)
“The group about which Lowell refers to of course
was comprised of Imagists.” (Ferlazzo 145)
There is little doubt that due attention has been
paid to American women writers from Phillis Wheatley
and
Harriet
Beecher
Stowe
to
Toni Morrison
but,
according to Paula Bernat Bennet:
Only one woman writer correctly enjoys what I
call
a
state
of
full
canonization,
ar
would
namely Emily Dickinson. By this I mean not
only that her place in high school and college
el
curriculums is secure but that the complete
apparatus
of
interpretations
scholarly
can
now
research
be
brought
and
on her
texts . . . It is as if Dickinson is sucking up
Es
t
all the oxygen, leaving little or nothing for
any
one else.
Dickinson’s
seem to
Dickinson’s
success: less
and
success
is
less
it
benefit women writers as
does
a whole.
(126-127)
The
poetry
of
Dickinson
must
also
be
studied
from the angle of its instructive nature. One may ask
if the poetry of Dickinson contains some message. Does
this message have some relevance in the modern times?
The question arises: Are we justified in expecting some
message from an introvert who had cut herself from
the world? The fact is that Dickinson was basically a
poet, not a thinker or philosopher. She had a tragic
vision. It is on account of this tragic vision that she
enjoys such a high position as a poet. Her poems give
us an idea of her understanding of her limitations. She
could
understand
penetrate
the
mysteries
of
it
very
unknowable
this
agonizing sense
well that
or
universe.
of
the
one
can
comprehend
Her
weight
of
poetry
not
the
deep
reveals
suffering.
It
an
also
acquaints with the human predicament which mocks the
man and destroys him. Dickinson
limits
of
reason,
relationship. Her
order
and
justice
ar
the
was fully conscious of
in
human
message, as such, is that man is a
feeble presence floating on the sea of this universe.
welfare
lies
not in
throwing
el
His
challenges
but
in
submitting to the forces beyond control. Since Dickinson
was a private poet, she stood in perfect isolation from
the
external
world
of
power
and
materialism
around
Es
t
her. She was extremely conscious of the negativity of
things. As such, she wrote:
I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you — Nobody — Too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don’t tell! They’d advertise — you know!
How dreary — to be — Somebody!
How public — like a Frog—
To tell one’s name — the livelong June—
To an admiring Bog!
There
is,
in
the
poetry
(CP 133)
of
Dickinson,
a
revolt
against the life of ease and comfort. She liked a life
of courage and vigour. This is why, she wrote:
A coward will remain, Sir,
Until the fight is done;
But an immortal hero
Will take his hat and run!
Good bye, Sir, I am going;
My country calleth me;
Allow me, Sir, at parting,
There
is
a
(CP 6)
ar
To wipe my weeping e’e.
message
in
the
lines
quoted
above.
There is also a message in the line in the twenty first
because we win―” (CP 15).
el
of her poems – “We lose―
The poet means to say that we must try to free
ourselves from the notion of owning something because
it
is
on account
of
this
notion
that
we
experience
Es
t
anguish and pain.
The poetry of Dickinson tells us about the world
fraught with
She
warns
world.
Her
perils
and
us against
poetry
contemptuous
being
is
human
ambitions
an expression
about
of
an
needs.
such
a
attitude
involving submission to the tragic realities of life. It
also
teaches
us
the
lesson
of
a
retreat
from
the
circumstances of tragedy. Emily was of the view that
nature is antagonistic towards the individual. It means a
great
cleavage between
inhuman
the
human
surroundings threatening
beings
their
and
hopes
the
and
aspirations. Emily also points towards the animosity of
God. God, according to her, is a Creator who harbours
some
bitter
resentment
towards
the
creation.
God’s
attitude towards the human race is grounded in a deep
and
abiding ill-will.
“Burglar”
This
“Banker”
Immortality
is
why
and “Father”.
was
the
natural
she
called
God
Her
belief
result
of
in
her
dissatisfaction with this life here on this earth:
Exultation is the going
Of an inland soul to sea,
Past the houses — past the headlands―
(CP 39)
ar
Into deep Eternity —
She wanted to have a real faith in Immortality.
Her
message
can
there
is
to
have
grant some
belief
meaning
in
to
el
alone
is
scope
of
hope
from
Immortality
this
life
which
because
the anticipation
of
Immortality. She has written:
Will there really be a “Morning”?
Es
t
Is there such a thing as “Day”?
Could I see it from the mountains
If I were as tall as they?
Such
utterances
can
be
(CP 101)
interpreted
as
messages
given by Dickinson to the world defeated by the fever
of pain and disappointment. There is relevance of such
messages as the world today is lost in disillusions.
There is no consistency in the views of Dickinson
coming to us through her poems. She has written on
Love, on Nature, on Pain and suffering, on Death, on
God
and
contradictions
on
in
Immortality
her
views.
but
Many
there are
poems
great
written
by
her can be called “wisdom pieces”. Such poems contain
her deep thoughts on life and its various pictures. She
has written poems through which she seems to warn
us against our going the wrong way. A great message
that
has
always
been
be
given by
ready
to
the
poet
welcome
is
pain
that
because
we should
it
is
a
great truth of life. It was so in the days Dickinson
and
it
is
so
even
in the
present
days
scientific development and man’s immeasurable
prosperity.
rightly
said
great
growth
in
with a prophetic
ar
vision:
Dickinson
of
For each ecstatic instant
We must an anguish pay
el
In keen and quivering ratio
To the ecstasy.
(CP 58)
In another poem she writes:
To fight aloud is very brave —
Es
t
But gallanter, I know
Who charge within the bosom
The Cavalry of Woe —
(CP 59)
This poem is a piece of wisdom as many others
are. There is great wisdom in the lines:
Dust is the only Secret
Death, the only One.”
(CP 72)
There is a stock of wisdom in the following lines
although everything has been said in a very simple and
innocent way:
Life is but life! And Death, but Death!
Bliss is, but Bliss, and Breath but Breath!
And if indeed I fail
At least to know the worst, is sweet!
Defeat means nothing but Defeat
No drearier, can befall. (CP 81-82)
All great poets have some message to offer. Some
do it directly and some indirectly. Since
the poet
is
a gifted creature comparable to a “seer” the message
given
by
him
or
her
is relevant
for
all times.
The
tragedies of Shakespeare give us a message through the
Paradise Lost
defeat of their heroes. John Milton’s
Keats and
and
in
Wordsworth also offer us their messages
messages
their
are
periods.
as
relevant
Dickinson
today
also
as
they
belongs to
the
el
were
these
ar
and Samson Agonistes also offer us messages. Shelley,
category of the artists mentioned above. The difference
is that she is never straight in giving her message.
This is so because her chief object as a poet was not
Es
t
to give a message but to articulate her thoughts on
the
and
different
guided by
conclusive
in
subjects.
She
doubts
her
was
that
so
much
she
thoughtful
could
statements except
never
for
be
such
a
realization by her readers. This feature of her poetry
has been noticed by Ruth Miller who says:
Eventually
Emily
Dickinson
does
arrive
at a
resolution of her doubts and hopes, despairs
and whimpers. Then she will express in many
a bardic avowal her faith that the unknown
will
one
nevertheless
nevertheless
day
be
known,
incorporeal,
immaterial,
is
the true
the
real
certain
and may one day be perceived.
(61)
and
but
but
sure
Although
she
lived
like
a
spiritualist,
Dickinson
was not a spiritualist. As such, there are no direct
messages
available
in
her poetry
although
there
are
poems which contain exhortations and pieces of advice
Hope is the thing
which can be termed her messages.
with feathers gives us the message of optimism which
never leaves us till our death. There is massage in the
ar
following lines:
This World is not Conclusion
A Species stands beyond —
el
Invisible, as Music —
But Positive as Sound —
(CP 243)
It is through these lines that the poet advises us
not to be afraid of death because there is another
Es
t
life after death. That life may be invisible but it is
as positive as sound. Such a message is relevant even
today
when
the
people
are
living
in
an
agnostic
manner. On the one hand, they find this life dreary
and meaningless and, on the other hand, they are too
full
Emily
of arguments,
was
a
to
believe
great Christian
in
at
a
life
heart
after
and
was
death.
very
much influenced by the character of Jesus Christ. As
such
she
has
given
the
message
of
forgiveness,
a
great virtue that has become very essential for the
people today, the age of violence:
The Harm They did — was short — And since
Myself — who bore it — do —
Forgive Them — Even as Myself —
Or else — forgive not me —
(CP 263)
There
is
again
a
message
given
by
the
poet
through the following lines:
In this short Life
That only lasts an hour
How much — how little — is
Within our power.
These
lines
throw
(CP 562)
light
on
our
limitations
as
ar
human beings. What can we do in this extremely short
and indefinite life? As such, we have to be vigilant
within ourselves and make the best use of the limited
el
duration for which we have arrived here. This message
also is as relevant today as it was when the
poet
wrote these lines.
Dickinson, according to her faith once more gives
Es
t
us the message of entertaining hope from death which
alone can
lead us to another life, perhaps better than
this. The poet has written:
I never hear that one if dead
Without the chance of Life
A fresh annihilating me
That mightiest
Dickinson
cared
a
was
(CP 574)
metaphysical
fig for worldly
nihilist and
Belief.
in
fame.
She
her
was
wrote:
Fame is a fickle food
Upon a shifting plate.
(CP 678)
It is in the same vein that she says:
Publication is theAuction
Of the Mind of Man —
(CP 348)
attitude
primarily
and
a
These lines are not only full of a message but
also
very piercing. Probably
written
so
no
contemptuously
poet
in
English
about publication.
has
Dickinson
does desire to tell us that we must never run after
publication through which we manage fame and renown
for ourselves. This may not be practised by men but
this is a very bitter reality of this materialistic life
people
waste
a
lot
of
their
energy
ar
where
in
the
temptation of becoming famous through the publication
of their works. Dickinson has instructed us
prey
to
such
a temptation and she
el
a
not
is
to fall
perfectly
correct in holding such an observation. Along with this,
she
has
also
advised
us
to
practice
renunciation
in
life. It is not receiving but giving up which gives us
Es
t
joy.
Renunciation — is a piercing Virtue —
The letting go
A
Presence —
for
an
Expectation —
Not now —
Renunciation is — the Choosing —
Against itself —
Itself to justify
Unto itself.
These
exhortation
lines
can
(CP 365 - 366)
be
by Dickinson
interpreted
who
had
as
a
herself
very
wise
renounced
everything without any expectation of being rewarded
for such a renunciation. The virtue of renunciation has
also
been
recommended
by
the
Indian Scriptures.
As
mentioned in them, it is through renunciation that we
can
realize
Dickinson
the
basic
can never
truth.
This
become
message
stale,
given
not
by
even
one
thousand years from now. Its relevance is indisputable.
Dickinson
she
practised
deliberately
secured
for
renunciation in
shunned
herself
by
such a manner
publicity
her
of
any
early thirties,
that
kind.
a
She
solitude
that was so complete that few were ever to see her
ar
again.
The messaging feature of Dickinson’s poetry was
also
the result
of
the
impact
of
Emerson.
Like
pushed
el
Emerson, She ignored the commands of orthodoxy. She
his
simplicity
literary
and
realism
sufficiency.
to
She,
startling
like
degrees
of
Emerson again,
believed in the spiritual sufficiency of the individual.
Es
t
It was on account of this influence that she came to
believe in the life of the soul:
The soul's superior instants
Occur to Her — alone
When friend― and Earth's occasion
Have infinite withdrawn.
(CP 144)
She came to realize that this life on earth should
not
be wasted
away;
it
should
be
utilized
and
its
proper utilization means the realization of the spiritual
light. This message of Dickinson is extremely relevant
in
these
days
materialism
spiritual
and
as
the
they
values. Even
people
are
in
a
are fed
finding great
country
like
up
with
meaning
America,
in
the
people are running back to the finer values of life. The
Indian
spiritualism
is
attracting
them so
much
that
they are, by and by, relinquishing many things and are
ready to replace them with spiritual values. Dickinson
wrote:
Summer is shorter than any one —
Life is shorter than Summer —
Seventy Years is spent as quick
As an only Dollar —
(CP 633)
ar
Dickinson also, like other poets and philosophers,
considered the communication of her thoughts a great
object
her
her
secluded life.
poetry.
It
is
She
performed
this connection
el
through
of
the
task
that
Ruth
Miller has observed:
And
what
is
even
connection
is
her
more
significant
practice
of
in
meditation
this
on
Es
t
her own ideas, her writing variant poems that
were
further
speculations,
sharper
clarifications, for her own sake, almost as if
she
were
seeking
to
discover
for
herself
what she believed. (39-40)
What is the position of Dickinson today among the
galaxy
of
English
poets?
One
may
be
surprised
to
note hat each year, scores of articles and books are
published on the poet and in the words of an eminent
critic,
"Dickinson
criticism
is
one
of
industries of American literary studies.”
Dickinson,
on
account
of
her
the major
(271)
exceptional
taciturnity and reclusive nature, did not interact with
the world through a social discourse. She preferred this
activity through her poetry. This sufficiently indicates
her longing to be known and recognized genuinely after
her
death.
Such
an
inclination
is
very
natural.
The
truth is that a poet writes not only for his or her
pleasure. His or her ultimate object
readers
that
because
whatever
every
he
is to reach the
poet is governed
or
she
has
by
the
written
is
faith
worth
consideration. Dickinson, like other poets, was conscious
the greatness of
her
poetry
and
this idea
ar
about
hers proved true. No American poet has so far
of
been
acclaimed as she has been by the future generations of
and
scholars.
She
has
also written
el
poets
a
very
significant poem in which she has expressed the desire
that
the
world
should
do
justice
to
her
while
evaluating her poetry which she has called her message
Es
t
to the world:
This is my letter to the World
That never wrote to Me —
The simple News that Nature told—
With tender Majesty.
Her message is committed
To Hand I can not see —
For love of Her Sweet — countrymen —
Judge tenderly — of Me.
(CP 211)
The poem is full of pathos. It also tells us that
Dickinson was very close to the phenomena of Nature
and
that
she
continues to
receive
messages
from
nature which she left in the hands she could not see.
In the last, she makes a very emotional appeal to her
countrymen to
"judge
tenderly
of
Me".
This
is
very
significant as it came from the aggrieved soul of the
poet.
The
desire
countrymen of
and
possible
she
was
manner.
Dickinson
acclaimed
As
a
regarded
by them
poet,
in
Dickinson
her
last
the
best
was seriously
concerned with the existential and metaphysical issues
of life. It would not be wrong to say that her entire
poetry is the result of her exploration, deep meditation
ar
and a thorough understanding of the mysteries of this
unintelligible universe. A close study of her poetry does
lead us to learn that it contains a message
although there is little
direct didacticism
el
readers
to her
in
her poetry.
One salient feature of
independent
approach
to
Dickinson's
the
issues
poetry is her
of
Heaven,
Hell
Es
t
and God. She also wrote with great seriousness on the
subjects
of
Death
and Immortality.
As
a
matter
of
fact, she was a religious poet who had the fire of a
revolutionary.
The
sense
of
revolt
is
permanently
present in her poetry though in a hidden form. She
dwells
upon the
predicament
of
miseries
man. She
happiness
which
is
of
This
nature of
pain.
happiness
led
her
of
had
short-lived
to
the
great
life
and
little faith
against
in
the
human
the permanence
ephemeral
subjects
on
like
nature
Death
of
and
Immortality. This also led her to Nature through which
the Almighty expresses Himself. The poet's confinement
in
her
room
was
an
expression
of her
revolt.
She
disdained to mix with hypocrites and preferred to be a
friend of
of
Nature
from whom
she
learned
hundreds
things.
Every poet speaks to the world through his or
her
poetry. Dickinson
became
straight
enough
to
say
that her poetry is her "letter to the world". The short
poem
of
eight
lines
can
be interpreted
in
a
large
number of pages like the 'shlokas' in Indian Upanishads
ar
and the exhortations of Lord Krishna. The second line
of the poem "that never wrote to me" has the nature
of
a complaint.
It
would
be
wrong
to
suppose
that
el
Dickinson hated to be appreciated as a poet. It was
out
of
an
the
decision
extraordinary
of
shutting
reaction that
herself
in
Dickinson
a
room
took
but it
never means that she was absolutely free from the
Es
t
ambition of recognition. Had it been so, she would not
have written:
Her message is committed
To Hands I can not see —
For love of Her — Sweet — countrymen —
Judge tenderly of Me.
(CP 211)
The two words "Judge tenderly" present for us the
earnest desire of the poet to be judged leniently, not
harshly. Dickinson was conscious of the fact that her
poetry
suffered
from
defects
of clumsiness
of
style
and poverty of language. She also knew the excessive
concision of her poetry and its unintelligible symbolism
were likely to annoy the scholars in future. As such, she
took the assistance of nature whose message she tried
to pass on to the next generations.
According
"tearful
to
Richard
complaint
B.
about
Sewall,
being
the
poem
is
neglected".
a
The
apprehension of the poet was correct because genuine
appreciation of the poetry of Dickinson came very late
and it was not without the study of her letters. Let
us then, as desired by the poet, study her poetry as
a message received from nature. Who else could give a
to this
recluse
inanimate
objects
of
seclusion
to
except
the
animate
ar
message
nature? She
prepare
herself to
chose
the
and
path
participate
of
in the
el
common experiences of all human beings. This decision
was taken by her in the year 1862. It was not that
her creativeness was at its height. She wisely sensed
that
the
external
world of
Es
t
hinder her growth as a poet.
men
and
women
would
This is why she wrote:
The Soul selects her own Society —
That — shuts the Door —
To her divine Majority —
Present no more —
It
is
quite
likely
that
(CP 143)
Dickinson's
soul
finally
selected the society of Nature from whom she learned
about the mysteries of life. She observed the inanimate
objects of nature as capable of giving her inspiration
and a feeling of reverence. She wrote:
The Grass so little has to do —
A Sphere of simple Green —
With only butterflies to brood
And Bees to entertain —
(CP 157)
It was the mystery of Nature which spiritualised
the
vision
mysticism
of
Dickinson
continued
to
and
the
process
grow with
these
of her
mysteries.
Dickinson's eye remained fixed on the transitory nature
of
human
life and
the
permanence
of
nature.
She
rightly wrote, "We pass and she abides". She also came
to know that nature creates and federates without a
Paul
Dickinson
J. Ferlazoo
was
has
rightly
concluded
ar
syllable.
sure
about
the great
and
that
important
secret that exists in nature. He has written:
she
dislikes
the analytical
el
But
decides “It's
finer —
summer
were
Snow?
She
not
an Axiom—/
approach
to
know—/
what
prefers
the
secrecy
and
if
had
anti-intellectual
Es
t
approach to nature which will keep its magical
quality
fresh
for
her
and
prevent
a
reduction of all phenomena to a simplistic set
An
of axioms.
(97)
extremely
significant
poem
about
Nature
written by Dickinson through which she has tried to
give her message to the world is poem number 668.
This poem prompted Jack L. Capps to conclude that
"the metaphors of this poem are a list of favourite
Emerson subjects.”
Dickinson,
(qtd. in Ferlazzo 97)
though
not
Wordsworthian
in
her
outlook, identified herself with Nature which was her
constant
contrasting
companion. She
man's
performed
temporary
the
task
achievements
of
and
impermanence with Nature's vastness and eternity. It is
in this observation that her message to humanity is
hidden. Nature, the poet noted, is the handiwork of
God
but Dickinson
was
also
conscious
of
the
indifference of nature and the transient objects of life
which
make
his
objects
unobtainable.
In
this
regard,
her poem Of Bronze and Blaze is very important as it
treats the poverty of man when compared with the
conveys
to
us
of God's creation. This poem also
ar
limitless splendour
the message
of
the
poet.
Dickinson’s
message to the mankind is also conveyed through the
the
el
poem How happy is little stone. The instructive tone of
poem
is quite evident.
The
stone,
an inanimate
object of nature, is happier because it does not care
about careers and is never afraid of exigencies. The
Es
t
message of the poet is
which defines
against
the
Nature
superiority
also
present in the
and confirms
of
Nature.
man's
poem
inferiority
The poet says:
“Nature” is what we see —
The Hill — the Afternoon —
Squirrel — Eclipse — the Bumble bee —
Nay — Nature is Heaven —
Nay — Nature is what we know —
You have no art to say —
So impotent Our Wisdom is
To her Simplicity. (CP 332)
It is certainly to offer her message that Dickinson
has written:
Nature in Chivalry —
Nature in charity —
Nature in equity —
The Rose ordained!
These
Dickinson
are
the
wrote
(CP 21)
different
to
the
contents
world.
of
These
the
letter
letters
are
certainly so important that the desire to be humanly
read and appreciated was something very natural about
letter to the world.
ar
which the poet has written in the poem – This is my
There is little doubt that the poem which starts
el
with the line This is my letter to the world is a
proven fact. The world of poetry readers has accepted
Dickinson's poems as her letter to the world to which
have
responded
Her
poetry is
in
the
most
predominantly
Es
t
they
psychological
strains.
conventional
concept of
irreligious.
As
we
written to
our
genuine
It
mystical.
may
not
religion
pour
favourable manner.
our
contains
cater
but
hearts
friends,
It
it
in
Dickinson
to
the
is
not
the letters
has
poured
her heart in her poem. Her experiences as a virgin, her
experiences
as a
recluse
are
all
present
in
this
prolonged letter which conveys to us her message she
learnt
from
the
animate
and
inanimate
objects of
nature. As has been observed by W. R. Goodman:
There are indeed times when her poetry is
quaint to the point of being cranky, when her
eccentricities, compressions and indirections lead
to incomprehensibility;
give
her
a second
or
but
if
third
the reader
chance
will
he, like
others
before her,
poetry
provides
will find
the
that
her
essence
best
of
great
literature― contact with a powerful, original,
fascinating mind.
When
we
sincerely,
we
look
at
can never
(252)
the
poetry
call
her
of
a
Dickinson
disillusioned or
gloomy thinker. No doubt, there is a tragic vision of
ar
life but we certainly learn from her that in all that
she has written, she has shown the spirit of a woman
who could
never
be
defeated
by
the
hard
and
el
unbearable mode of her life. She called her poetry a
letter
because
Keats
and
ultimate
Hardy,
solution
and
inspire
us
of the
problems
submission.
Es
t
surrender
this letter, like the letters written by
The
as
we learn
of
about
life
instructive
the
through
quality
of
her poetry which she has called a letter prove that
she
had
"rich
and
varied imaginative
experiences
and
that her 'fantasy' life was the richest and deepest.”
(Ferlazzo 79)
The
gist
of
her
letter
that
she
wrote
to the
world which did not speak to her is contained in the
following lines. These lines resemble
the letter written
by great thinkers and philosophers. The lines are:
God made no act without a cause,
Nor heart without an aim,
Our inference is premature,
Our premises to blame. (CP 518)
Dickinson,
during
her
lifetime,
felt neglected
and
unrecognized. This is why she wrote the poem calling
her
poems
poetry
is
a
letter.
one
which
Nature which
was
the
The
message enshrined
Nature
has
permanent
for
in
her
mankind,
the
companion
of
the
poet. The fact is very well proved by the applause and
acclaim she received after death when the contents of
her
poetry
reached the
hands not
only
of
her
countrymen but also in the hands of persons living in
countries,
even
in
a
country like
India
ar
other
where
critics like Salamatullah Khan wrote about her in the
Es
t
el
most convincing manner.