American Literature – Chaper 24
Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson: a life of claustrophobic despair – blinding insights –feeble success at
fleshly love – a life whose dreams still shine, and whose poetic whispers echo in our mind. She
owned a faith in the beauty of life that will never die. Let’s absorb the mood and intensity of Emily
Dickinson as we wander from poem to poem, like a bee, drawing vital strength from each flower.
A Visit to the Poetic Garden of Emily Dickinson
"And then the Windows failed-and then/I could not see to see--"
The setting is the funeral of the speaker interrupted by a noise following
“I Heard A Fly Buzz—When I Died”
"Then--close the Valves of her attention--Like Stone--"
Reminds the reader of the poet’s own reclusiveness
“The Soul Selects Her Own Society”
The last lines contrast our human sense of time to God's timelessness.
Death is a carriage ride.
Death is personified as a courteous gentleman
“Because I Could Not Stop For Death”
Describes the activity in a house after death
“The Bustle in a House”
The fact of a flower killed by an autumn frost takes on import
“Apparently with No Surprise”
Parting is both good and evil
“My Life Closed Twice before Its Close”
"When it goes, 'tis like the Distance/On the look of Death--"
Uses the simile of religious music
“There’s A Certain Slant of Light”
The speaker's funeral is presented as a nightmare.
Although the imagery of the person is almost entirely of sounds, the movement is toward silence.
“I Felt a Funeral in My Brain”
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Emily Dickinson was a mystery–a legend –a sad little girl who grew up deep within the society
of her own mind. Her poems attracted little attention during her lifetime and she lived most of her
life in New England. As the greatest influence on Dickinson's poetry was the Bible, materialism was
not one of Dickinson's major poetic themes. The literary figure Thomas Wentworth Higginson was
Dickinson’s mentor. Most of Dickinson's poems are written in hymn meter. Surprisingly, in relation
to Christianity, she was a doubter.
Unlike modern authors who might receive millions for their works, only seven of Dickinson's
poems were published during her lifetime. All of the poems that were published during Dickinson's
lifetime were published anonymously. In 1955, a complete edition of Dickinson's poems was
published.
1862 represented a turning point in Dickinson's life and work. Charles Wadsworth, a
minister and the man she loved, left for San Francisco that year. Emily Dickinson judged poetry by
her own response to it. Intense best describes Emily Dickinson. The word personal best describes
Dickinson's mode of expression. The connection of everyday life and the world of the spirit is the
great subject of Dickinson's poems.
It is difficult not to like Emily Dickinson. Her thoughts are intricately personal, and as the
ghostly poetic knife twists, her pain and our pain are one. She wrote for eternity and herself—
anonymously and unpublished until 1955—real words, like confessions from a deathbed. Perhaps she
was in her room, looking out the window at a bird, when a thought would soar and alight on paper.
Perhaps, with her head down, whimpering in her favorite corner about the one love who never
returned her affection—her pain was rewarded with still another revelation. Like a child being born
premature and living, she was one so pure and delicate that all are blessed who listen to her breathe
the most secret of secret thoughts.
If I read a book and it makes my whole body
so cold no fire can ever warm me,
I know that is poetry.
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If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.
These are the only ways I know it.
Is there any other way?
Emily Dickinson
1830-1886
Visit Emily’s Homestead
Virtual Emily
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
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