The Poet's Tool - The Words of Emily Dickinson

The Poet's Tool - The Words of Emily Dickinson

A poet couched in mystique and controversy--that is Emily Dickinson. But amidst all the disagreement, one idea critics seem to agree upon is the recognition of this remarkable poet's love of language. Emily Dickinson's love affair with words fed her desire to master their use whether individually or combined in phrases until they said exactly what she wanted them to say. For Emily Dickinson words were a fascination and, in her hands, they become the poet's tool.

The Gospel of John opens with the statement, "In the beginning was the word" (1:1). Donald Thackrey takes this phrase and applies it to Emily Dickinson's fascination with the individual word (1). She "is one of the foremost masters of poetic English since Shakespeare" (Rupp, 93). The determination shown in the masterly quest to discover the right word is one of the primary means of defining what makes Emily Dickinson's poetry distinct from all other poetry (Rupp, 93).

In her poem "I dwell in Possibility--" (#657) she wrote:

I dwell in Possibility --

A fairer House than Prose --

More numerous of Windows --

Superior -- for Door -- . . . (1-4)

The use of the word "possibility" illustrates Dickinson's personal awareness of the range of ideas, feelings, and images to be found in the combination of words into phrases and the linking of those phrases into poems. "Possibility is Emily Dickinson's synonym for poetry" and, since the possibilities are endless, Dickinson's poetry presents no final truth (Weisbuch 1). Further describing her attitudes in "They shut me up in Prose --" (#613), it can be discovered that for Dickinson "The House of Prose" represented "conventional an...

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...B. Emily Dickinson: An Introduction and Interpretation. NY: Barnes and Noble, Inc., 1967.

Rupp, Richard H., ed. Critics on Emily Dickinson: Readings in Literary Criticism. Coral Gables: U of Miami P, 1972.

Sherwood, William R. Circumference and Circumstance: Stages in the Mind and Art of Emily Dickinson. NY: Columbia UP, 1968.

Thackrey, Donald E. Emily Dickinson's Approach to Poetry. Brooklyn: Haskell House Publishers Ltd., 1976.

Weisbuch, Robert. Emily Dickinson's Poetry. Chicago: The U of Chicago P, 1975.

Additional Works Consulted

Luce, William. The Belle of Amherst: A Play based on the Life of Emily Dickinson. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1976.

Moore, Geoffrey, ed. Great American Poets: Emily Dickinson. NY: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1986.

Robinson, John. Emily Dickinson: Looking to Canaan. London: faber and faber, 1986.