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There are dangers and risks if you are a woman and a poet. With a poetic voice comes a vast amount of power. The knowledge and power women gain from their craft can be dangerous. It is dangerous in terms of addiction, the inability to go back to a point when ignorance was available. There is a moment of recognition as a female poet who uses her words with effect, words that possess immense power, that despite this power, as a woman you are still incapable of controlling how your words will be directed. Dickinson was a poet who was in control of her words and yet simultaneously incapable of directing them to anyone but herself. In her poem “My Life had stood---a Loaded Gun---” the oppositions between male and female roles in the culture are predominant. This is a poem that expresses the anxiety of being a female poet. Dickinson feels a lack of agency as a woman and conveys her frustration with violent imagery. The “Loaded Gun” is her poetry and it is lethal. Yet without the “Owner”, the men of the world, it is incapable of performing its function. The maleness that Dickinson feels oppressing and governing her life rapes her of any self empowerment her poetry may otherwise grant her.
“My Life had stood---a Loaded Gun---
In Corners---till a Day
The Owner passed---indentified---
And carried Me away---”
The first line emphasizes the potential within her. The “Loaded Gun” refers to her craft, the poetry she wrote. In a sense then this poem itself is a “Loaded Gun” along with the rest of the poetry she wrote. The second line is representative of the fact that the gun has always existed. The gun did not suddenly appear it was not hidden from sight. It was in the corner, away from the center of focus, and it remai...
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...en suddenly implodes with aggression. The aggression is funneled outwards because the male directs it. As a result the poem concludes with an umbrella theme that states her victory and yet has underlying tones of an incomplete and insubstantial victory. In the language of the poem “The poet experiences herself as loaded gun, imperious energy; yet without the Owner, the possessor, she is merely lethal. Should that possession abandon her [she would be free to express and live in a manner she desired]--but [that] thought is unthinkable [for Dickinson because for her it lies outside the scope of reality, so deeply ingrained is the system of maleness in her life and experience]: "He longer must than I.” (Rich).
There is one poem which is the real "onlie begetter" of my thoughts here about Dickinson; a poem I have mused over, repeated to myself, and taken into myself.
Although, Emily Dickinson physically isolated herself from the world she managed to maintain friendships by communicating through correspondence. Ironically, Dickinson’s poetry was collected and published after her death. Dickinson explores life and death in most of her poems by questioning the existence of God. Dickinson applies common human experiences as images to illustrate the connection from the personal level of the human being, to a universal level of faith and God. This can be seen in Dickinson’s Poem (I, 45).
She chooses this arrangement of verse in order to ordain a religious aspect into the poem, which does well to suite the theme and what she is fond of. As the recollection of the speaker’s death progresses, Dickinson uses the stanzas to mark the stages of the
Dickinson’s Christian education affected her profoundly, and her desire for a human intuitive faith motivates and enlivens her poetry. Yet what she has faith in tends to be left undefined because she assumes that it is unknowable. There are many unknown subjects in her poetry among them: Death and the afterlife, God, nature, artistic and poetic inspiration, one’s own mind, and other human beings.
God is indicated as the Master and the gun as the narrator is intended to be lived till the day she came across her purpose of living. In this context, the poetry is also expressing another dimension of speaker’s understanding related to religion and spirituality. In order to obtain a clear picture regarding the underlying meaning of the poem, the second stanza is instilled with significant description. With the incorporation of anaphora in the starting lines which further elaborates the structure of the poem that is transitioning from present to
Emily Dickinson had an interesting life, and is a profound woman in the history of America and literature. Emily wrote many poems. Some are titled, and many are given chronological numbers instead of headlining the main theme. I am interpreting Poem #315.
This poem was written by American poet, Emily Dickinson, who was born in the 1800. This was the period where art was based on emotion; the “Romantic Period”. She was also born in the Victorian Era, where women had to be shackled to their pedestals and most had to be married by age eighteen. They were not allowed to vote, or earn money. This information should help the reader better understand the poem. When writing the poem “My Life had stood—a Loaded Gun” Dickinson thought of what format to use to express her emotions; Quatrain (four verses). This format is used to express deep emotions at any time. She uses lines in her poem that seem the same but not quite; they are “slant rhymes”. Dickinson grew up in a time where abolition rose up (which is why her poetry is so deep); and in the most religious, morally upright and independent sections of the United States. Dickinson represents herself and her life, metaphorically, as a loaded gun, a phallic symbol that is associated with masculinity; everything “women” is not. Dickinson’s studies include her affairs as well as alleged relationships in regards to her sexuality, her absurdity in a mocking sense when looking at the women of her time, as well as even challenging the idea of Dickinson as a peculiar loner; therefore, explaining her position/emotions in a feministic world.
Emily Dickinson, who achieved more fame after her death, is said to be one of the greatest American poets of all time. Dickinson communicated through letters and notes and according to Amy Paulson Herstek, author of “Emily Dickinson: Solitary and Celebrated Poet,” “Writing was the way she kept in touch with the world” (15). Dickinson’s style is unique and although unconventional, it led to extraordinary works of literature. Dickinson lived her life in solitude, but in her solitude she was free to read, write and think which led to her nonconformity and strong sense of individualism. Suzanne Juhasz, a biographer of Dickinson, sums up most critics’ idea of Dickinson ideally: “Emily Dickinson is at once the most intimate of poets, and the most guarded. The most self-sufficient, and the neediest. The proudest, and the most vulnerable. These contradictions, which we as her readers encounter repeatedly in her poems, are understandable, not paradoxical, for they result from the tension between the life to which she was born and the one to which she aspired” (1). Dickinson poured her heart and soul into over 1,700
Though Dickinson’s poem may initially seem transcendental, it can also be interpreted as a mixture of Emerson’s transcendental ideas and those that support the notion of imagination. Dickinson’s poem serves as a response to Emerson’s ideas because she adds on to his thoughts and unites his idea that there is oneness present in the world with the notion that imagination and sight serve as a bridge that connects human consciousness with nature to create this oneness that Emerson believes in. In the first stanza, the narrator says, that “I got my eye put out” (1), showing that she can now only see from one eye because of the singular use of eyes. Because she only talks of having lost sight in one eye, it can be assumed that she laments the limited vision that is now provided by her remaining eye. The narrator’s fragmented and limited vision caused by the loss of one eye is captured through the extensive use of dashes, which are used to separate the sentences, making them give a feeling of disarray and disjointedness.
Emily Dickinson is one of the great visionary poets of nineteenth century America. In her lifetime, she composed more poems than most modern Americans will even read in their lifetimes. Dickinson is still praised today, and she continues to be taught in schools, read for pleasure, and studied for research and criticism. Since she stayed inside her house for most of her life, and many of her poems were not discovered until after her death, Dickinson was uninvolved in the publication process of her poetry. This means that every Dickinson poem in print today is just a guess—an assumption of what the author wanted on the page. As a result, Dickinson maintains an aura of mystery as a writer. However, this mystery is often overshadowed by a more prevalent notion of Dickinson as an eccentric recluse or a madwoman. Of course, it is difficult to give one label to Dickinson and expect that label to summarize her entire life. Certainly she was a complex woman who could not accurately be described with one sentence or phrase. Her poems are unique and quite interestingly composed—just looking at them on the page is pleasurable—and it may very well prove useful to examine the author when reading her poems. Understanding Dickinson may lead to a better interpretation of the poems, a better appreciation of her life’s work. What is not useful, however, is reading her poems while looking back at the one sentence summary of Dickinson’s life.
One of Emily Dickinson’s greatest skills is taking the familiar and making it unfamiliar. In this sense, she reshapes how her readers view her subjects and the meaning that they have in the world. She also has the ability to assign a word to abstractness, making her poems seemingly vague and unclear on the surface. Her poems are so carefully crafted that each word can be dissected and the reader is able to uncover intense meanings and images. Often focusing on more gothic themes, Dickinson shows an appreciation for the natural world in a handful of poems. Although Dickinson’s poem #1489 seems disoriented, it produces a parallelism of experience between the speaker and the audience that encompasses the abstractness and unexpectedness of an event.
Vendler, Helen. Dickinson: Selected Poems and Commentaries. President and Fellows of Harvard College, 2010. 118-20. Google Books. Google. Web. 5 April. 2014. .
In this poem, the woman did not just die but she has been dead. She is communicating from beyond the grave, by describing her journey with death. Death is portrayed as a gentleman who takes the speaker on a ride to eternity. Dickinson wrote this poem in a way that the reader is able to feel what the woman is going through. In this poem, death is seen as a passive and not as being something bad. Dickinson’s form and tone enables the reader to have an understanding of the message she is trying to convey. In this poem, each verse paints a piece of a picture for the reader and as you get to the end of the poem the picture is completed.
Her poetry legacy approximates nearly 2,000 poems. Many of them include a radical philosophy, which requires sensitive perception from the reader. Typically, the poem “She Rose to His Requirement” contains an indignant point of view of gender inequality. In the 19th century, women were inferior to men, and they did not have many rights as men did. Married women were restricted to domestic employments. They were the shadow of their husbands. This prejudice was normal in Dickinson’s time period, but she refused to follow this convention. She owns a feminist ideology of a modern woman, so to her, limiting women’s ability is against nature. Therefore, the poem is her voice for the desire of gender equality for women, and for wives.
“Major Characteristics of Dickinson’s Poetry.” Emily Dickinson Museum. Trustees of Amherst College, 2009. Web. 23 January 2014.
Dickinson was unique and the “exception” in creating a private relationship with her self and her soul. In “Emily Dickinson and Popular Culture”, David S. Reynolds, a new historicism critic, wrote that it 's no surprise that the majority of Dickinson 's poetry was produced between 1858-1866, “It was a period of extreme consciousness about proliferation of varied women 's role in American culture.” It was a time where women were actively searching for more “literary” ways of self expression” (Reynolds 25). Dickinson was able to express her ideas and beliefs as a woman, something that was scandalous during this time period.