Emily Dickinson in her poem anthology had many, varied attitudes towards many questions about both life and death. She expressed these in a great variety of tones throughout each of her poems and the speaker in these individual poems is often hard for the reader to identify. In many of her poems, she preferred to conceal the specific causes and nature of her deepest feelings, especially experiences of suffering, and her subjects flow so much into one another in language and conception that it is often difficult to tell if she is writing about people or God, nature or society, spirit or art. Dickinson was a very diverse poet, constantly having hidden meanings and different poetic schemes in her poems, she was all over the place. In many …show more content…
In Dickinson’s poem “If I can stop one heart from breaking,” she was expressing “life” by showing a desire to stop a person from having their heart broken. A broken heart can come from a relationship, a death, or any of the typical hardships that people go through in life. She was expressing that if she was able to stop one person from experiencing this kind of pain, a heart attack, then her life would not have been lived in vain, without a purpose to live. She then continued with, “If I can ease one Life the Aching / Or cool one Pain.” In these two lines she reiterated, using the ballad stanza, her first point, which is that she wanted to help relieve the ache and pain in at least one person’s life. She personally believed by helping others, would possibly make her at ease with the fact that not many people offered to help her. She was seen as an outcast, hardly ever leaving her house, and she tried to find happiness by sneaking snack to her younger siblings at night. In this poems she as well uses the the word “cool”, which would most likely make the reader think that the pain is hot, perhaps red such as when someone face and body turn red when they are angry. Then, to cool the pain she would be distinguishing the fiery anger in this person’s breaking heart. Dickinson as well chose to capitalize both “aching” and “pain” in these two lines, showing and emphasizing that these are very important themes in the poem. The next stanza begins with, “Or help one …show more content…
This poem begins, similarly to many of Dickinson’s poems, with a paradox in the first line, “I’m Nobody!” She uses this paradox to claim that if one is a nobody, then this reveals that one is a somebody, that one exists and has an independent identity, even if that personal identity is defined by an absence of social identity. This claim that one is nobody may suggest that one is disregarded by others, or similarly to Dickinson in her personal life viewed herself an outcast and chose to hardly ever leave her house. In reality, it is very likely that most people would not view her as an “outcast” and eventually her negative perception of herself would change. Therefore, Dickinson was too hard on herself and the speaker in this poems similarly is likely too hard on themselves as well. Ironically, if the speaker feels that she is “Nobody” because others ignore her or have negative perceptions of her, then her poem is a way of defying that kind of treatment—a way of making sure that she is indeed noticed. The meaning of the saying by itself “I am Nobody,” calls herself to our attention. The second half of the first line of the paradox then asks, “Who are you?” Although, the speaker maybe ignored or humble, or both, she seems to not unfriendly or have issues socializing. She immediately reaches out to the unknown persons referred to in the poem as “you,” a reference perhaps to the reader. It is as if the speaker were trying to establish a dialogue with another
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).
Emily Dickinson was one of the greatest woman poets. She left us with numerous works that show us her secluded world. Like other major artists of nineteenth-century American introspection such as Emerson, Thoreau, and Melville, Dickinson makes poetic use of her vacillations between doubt and faith. The style of her first efforts was fairly conventional, but after years of practice she began to give room for experiments. Often written in the meter of hymns, her poems dealt not only with issues of death, faith and immortality, but with nature, domesticity, and the power and limits of language.
Emily Dickinson is one of the most popular American poets of all time. Her poetry is seen as intense and passionate. Several of her many poems seem to be devoted to death and sadness. No one seems to know the exact connections between actual events in her life and the poetry that she wrote. The reader can see vivid images of Dickinson's ideas of death in several of her poems. Dickinson's use of imagery and symbolism are apparent in several of her death poems, especially in these three: "I Felt a Funeral in My Brain," "I Heard a Fly Buzz-When I Died," and "Because I Could Not Stop for Death."
Emily Dickinson was a polarizing author whose love live has intrigued readers for many years. Her catalog consists of many poems and stories but the one thing included in the majority of them is love. It is documented that she was never married but yet love is a major theme in a vast amount of her poetry. Was there a person that she truly loved but never had the chance to pursue? To better understand Emily Dickinson, one must look at her personal life, her poems, and her diction.
This major event in her life was caused by writing poems. Another reason she might have been isolated from everyone was because she was at home taking care of her mother during a young age and while she was in college to top that off. During that time “her father had died in 1874 suddenly” (Online Literature) and that is when she started to isolate herself from society and everything else. “She stopped going out in public though she still kept up her social contacts”, she wanted to keep in touch with people at the same time to make poems. At the same time, she told everyone that she was not suffering from anything, and that she enjoyed and “fulfilled the contact in her world” (Cliffnotes). Dickinson became in this state of matter because of the influence and “correspondence with Higginson,” was probably why Dickinson isolated everyone out of her life. Dickinson’s “correspondence with Higginson probably also influenced her that her poems had no significant in or won’t bring the audience's attention,” with Higginson’s words stuck in her head, it influenced her to isolate herself from society. While she was writing poems Dickinson wanted to make her parents, society and her family aware of her work. When she wrote her poems she wanted to make everyone proud of her work that she has been doing, including her parents. Her parents are the ones that she really wanted to impress and be proud of her. After all the isolation, she came out and she resigned from making poems. Dickinson’s life was supported with everything from parents to everyone in
Miss Dickinson is often compared with other poets and writers, but “like Shakespeare, Miss Dickinson is without opinions'; (Tate 86). “Her verses and technical license often seem mysterious and can confuse critics, but after all is said, it is realized that like most poets Miss Dickinson is no more mysterious than a banker. It is said that Miss Dickinson’s life was starved and unfulfilled and yet all pity is misdirected. She lived one of the richest and deepest lives ever on this continent. It was her own conscious choice to deliberately withdraw from society into her upstairs room…'; (Tate 83). She kept to “only a few select friends and the storm, wind, wild March sky, sunsets, dawns, birds, bees, and butterflies were sufficient companionship for Miss Dickinson'; (Loomis 79). She dealt with a lot both physically and psychologically and in the end she still came out on the top. So as Allen Tate best said it “in her own historical setting Miss Dickinson is nevertheless remarkable and special'; (82).
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
This work shows a number of things about Dickinson's style of writing. Firstly, it is another example of Dickinson's style of structure, with a loose ABCB rhyme and iambic trimeter. Its theme is of hope which hints at a cry for help signifying further isolation and depression. The poem seems to have an audience of just herself. This could be a poem that she wrote in an attempt to cheer herself up in a time of sadness with an uplifting verse or just a poem written because of how she felt that day; either way it is clear that this poem was not designed for a large audience.
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.
Reading a poem by Emily Dickinson can often lead the reader to a rather introspective state. Dickinson writes at length about the drastically transformative effect a book may have upon its’ reader. Alternating between iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, Dickinson masterfully uses the ballad meter to tell a story about the ecstasy brought by reading. In poem number 1587, she writes about the changes wrought upon the reader by a book and the liberty literature brings.
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born on 10th December, 1830, in the town of Amherst, Massachusetts. As a young child, she showed a bright intelligence, and was able to create many recognizable writings. Many close friends and relatives in Emily’s life were taken away from her by death. Living a life of simplicity and aloofness, she wrote poetry of great power: questioning the nature of immortality and death. Although her work was influenced by great poets of the time, she published many strong poems herself. Two of Emily Dickinson’s famous poems, “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” and “I Heard a Fly Buzz- When I Died”, are both about life’s one few certainties, death, and that is where the similarities end.
Dickinson's poetry is both thought provoking and shocking. This poem communicates many things about Dickinson, such as her cynical outlook on God, and her obsession with death. It is puzzling to me why a young lady such as Emily Dickinson would be so melancholy, since she seemed to have such a good life. Perhaps she just revealed in her poetry that dark side that most people try to keep hidden.
Imagery is a big component to most works of poetry. Authors strive to achieve a certain image for the reader to paint in their mind. Dickinson tries to paint a picture of ?death? in her own words. Thomas A. Johnson, an interpretive author of Dickinson's work, says that ?In 1863 Death came into full statue as a person. ?Because I could not stop for Death? is a superlative achievement wherein Death becomes one of the greatest characters of literature? (Johnson). Dickinson's picture to the audience is created by making ?Death? an actual character in the poem. By her constantly calling death either ?his? or ?he,? she denotes a specific person and gender. Dickinson also compares ?Death? to having the same human qualities as the other character in the poem. She has ?Death? physically arriving and taking the other character in the carriage with him. In the poem, Dickinson shows the reader her interpretation of what this person is going through as they are dying and being taken away by ?Death?. Dickinson gives images such as ?The Dews drew quivering and chill --? and ?A Swelling of the Ground --? (14, 18). In both of these lines, Dickinson has the reader conjure up subtle images of death. The ?quivering an chill? brings to the reader's mind of death being ...
Many of her poems were a reaction to the rejection of many publishers and other literary critics. This particular poem’s character comes from Dickinson’s reaction to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s statement that “poets are thus liberating gods.” Here she is challenging the established literati by questioning popular Emersonian views. In particular, this poem is a reaction to Emerson’s belief that “the poet is the sayer, the namer, and represents beauty.” Basically, it is a reaction to the idea that the poet is the creator of beautiful words, liberating the common people by giving them words they would not have access to.
...ause I Could Not Stop for Death” Dickinson portrays her feelings of death and dying through the eyes of the dying. In this poem, the reader learns what it is like to experience death. In “After great pain, a formal feeling comes,” Dickinson personifies death and the feelings accompanied with it. Although the deceased has no feelings, Dickinson compares the two to help gain a better understanding of the feelings accompanied with the loss of a loved one.