Depression In Emily Dickinson's Poetry

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Harold Bloom, a Yale literary critic, states “ Dickinson [...] has a mind so original and powerful that we scarcely have begun, even now, to catch up with her”. Dickinson often isolated herself, a small woman in a large house with a mother who favored her son rather than her reclusive daughter. This along with her many unrequited loves led to her struggle with depression, and she persevered the only way she knew how, by writing almost 1800 poems. Despite these struggles, Dickinson became one of the most famous American poets. Dickinson’s use of various poetic techniques illustrates her agonizing struggle with depression and recurrent thoughts of death in “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain”, “After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes” , and “__________________” …show more content…

In the first line Dickinson states “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,”. This first line sets the pace for the rest of the poem, the caesuras force the reader to feel the raw agony that plagues Dickinson by making the reader to slow down, allowing every phrase to sink in. Along with caesuras, Dickinson’s repeated use of rhythm gives a familiar pattern and repetition to neurotic state. Only able to focus on her own death, Dickinson describes her funeral in the second stanza. As she writes, “ A Service, like a Drum- / Kept beating- till I thought / My mind was going numb-” Dickinson uses the imagery of beating as a way to fill the nothing that is inside, to give rhythm and uniformity when there is none. The beating drowns out her sorrow, until she feels nothing at all. The service is a beating drum, drowning all emotion until she is dead. The irony in this statement is that there is no physical death, depression has clouded the light, killing everything trapped underneath it. Dickinson also describes her struggle with depression by stating, “With those same Boots of Lead, again”. Her word choice opens the curtains to the windows of her mind, the boots of lead showing that every tasks become becomes nearly insurmountable, requiring immense strength and perseverance. Dickinson feels as if her

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