Emily Dickinson's Poetry

Emily dickinson's Poetry

In Emily Dickinson's Poetry she has a great interest with brief encounters and transition states of mind.

Dickinson's depicts many of her brief encounters in great detail. Even if it was only a passing moment, Dickinson does not omit any aspect of her sightings. An example of a passing moment which she develops into great detail would be Dickinson's first sighting of the bird in "A bird came down the walk" Here ED expands on the birds actions and movements. Her description of the bird in flight takes up many lines. Instead of simply telling us the bird took flight, she elaborates on the beauty and grace of his flight. The actions of the birds are awe - inspiring to her.

"And rowed him softer home"

"Than oars divide the ocean....."

Dickinson's attitude to passing moments is quite complex, as she does not interpret them simply as a "passing moment" but an extraordinary descriptive event.

Another example of a passing moment would be in "A narrow fellow in the grass" In this poem Dickinson's keen observation of passing moments is clearly observed. She notices every movement of the snake even though his movements are very sudden and fast. Initially the snake is characterized as transient or passing swiftly. These movements appear to be very sudden but Dickinson goes into more detail and as a result the essential nature of the snake is clearly defined.

"The grass divides as with a comb"

"Whip lash" "wrinkled and was gone"

The snake's brief passing seems much longer to Dickinson whereas it was a very quick movement. By using he word "Whiplash" to describe the snakes actions we can see how sudden the experience must have been. She tells us how she was frightened to the core of her being:

"Without a tighter breathing

"And Zero at the bone"

Dickinson does not treat this as a quick passing moment but an experience, which she elaborates on. This aspect of her work also occurs in "I felt a funeral in my brain" An example of this would be her stream of consciousness which is clearly illustrated with Dickinson' s urgent repetition of `And "