Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson is one of the famous and fabulous female poets in the world. Her poems, for all their innovative brilliance, are nonetheless outpourings of her private feelings. And just like her great masterpieces, her enigmatic character will never fall into oblivion. Emily Dickinson’s poetry has been the focus of researchers, such as nature ,love and death. But one fourth of her poetry is about the theme of death.

Obviously, death is her most beloving theme of her poems. Death is always the endearing topic of many artists and philosophers. While in Emily’s eyes, death is different from others. In her eyes, death is not dead, death is beautiful , fantastic and mystical which most of us couldn’t understand and imagine. So we want to probe into the inner world of Emily Dickinson. We want to figure out the reason why Emily could imagine death in that unique and unprecedented way.

We also want to get some new understanding about life and death through her works for we really need to keep a positive, lucid and quiet mind in secular society. Death is the eternal theme during our whole life. If life is a river, it’s always a river of death. Death is inevitable for all of us from the moment we come to this world. Death is following us like a shadow. , invisible but existing. Death is so important that only we get full knowledge of death can we live a better and meaningful life.

Emily Dickinson [1830-1886] was a powerful poet of America and the “most perfect flower of New England. ” She not only did occupy a pride of place in American Literature but she was considered to be an anticipator of philosophical poetry, a harbinger of Modernity and an upholder of Romanticism. In her wit she was philosophical, in her attitudes a Romantic and in her poetics a Modern. She wrote upon varied subjects though she was known to be virtually withdrawn from the outside world till she breathed her last.

Her pen gave poetic touch to all issues right from Death, contemporary social scene, immortality , pain and pleasure , hope and fear, love , Nature, God, religion, virtue. Hers was a highly romantic soul that found strange beauty and startling suggestion in the simplest elements of experience—the glance of a friend ,a sentence in a book, a bee’s hum, a stone in the road or the slant of light on winter afternoons. Her poems won her a place in world literature because of their originality.

It is really interesting to note that Emily Dickinson once wrote to Thomas Wentworth Higginson of The Atlantic Monthly sometime in 1862 “Are you too deeply occupied to say that my verse is alive? ” No doubt, A. C. Ward had called her “perhaps next to Whitman the greatest American poet of the last century. ” Emily Dickinson had a checkered life of love and frustration or love and a sense of loss before 1958 when she had withdrawn from the society , keeping herself cooped up in her father’s residence at Amherst, Massachusetts. She used to write and preserve the poems in small volumes,- in her own coinage ‘fascicles’.

In her lifetime she was able to publish only seven to ten poems though she went on writing madly from 1858 to 1864[some say 1862]. Most of her neighbors remembered her to see wandering alone in the house dressed in spotless white. They even nicknamed her “the woman in white. ” She remained an enigma till her demise. After her death, her sister Lavinia found forty such poems in her bedroom. She sat with Mary Babel Todd , their neighbor as well as a family friend, and Thomas Wentworth Higginson they found these to be somewhat difficult to publish. Emily Dickinson even loved to share her poems through letters with her friends.

Emily Dickinson used to stay in her paternal residence with her unmarried sister Lavinia till death. Her brother Austin Dickinson moved to a nearby house with his wife Susan. And it is known through the article by Emily Dickinson: Continuing Enigma by Jone Johnson Lewis [Women’s History Guide] that she used to write letters even to her closest neighbors and even with Susan and Mabel Todd she used to write regularly. She even sent poems to them through the letters. Says George Frisbie Whicher in her book This was a Poet, “A letter seemed to her to possess a spectral power.

It was the disembodied mind, walking alone….. The letters that she composed during her years of seclusion are like her poems, distinguishable from them only by their greater length and variety. ” It is interesting to note that Emily Dickinson used to write poems right from the days in Mount Holyoke Seminary. R. B. Sewall has it that the Book of Revelation was her favorite book of the Bible. As a schoolgirl when she wrote, ”I hope the father in the skies /Will lift his little girl ,–/Old-fashioned, naughty, everything,–/Over the stile of pearl!

” she seemed to echo the ideas she imbibed from her tutor, Doctor Wadsworth. But she began to mature along with the growing years, gave up the religious inclinations she had so far. From the winter of 1861—62, Emily Dickinson changed her course of thought and started to declare, “They[family members] are religious, except me” From then onwards she decided to live and breathe for her writing alone. Perhaps, she found as a poet a more satisfying existence than she could otherwise find as a woman. She had a horde of literary friends to whom she loved to send her poems . They were:

Samuel Bowles, Josiah Gilbert Holland, Helen Hunt Jackson, Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Thomas Niles of Roberts Brothers all with a professional interest. They also were of the opinion that the reading public of the sixties and the seventies were not of the required wavelength to meet her on her own level. It might have been one reason behind her very few publications during her lifetime. Her niece Martha Dickinson Bianchi took all the responsibility to publish three authentic volumes of her poems: Further Poems of Emily Dickinson[1929],Unpublished poems of Emily Dickinson [1935]and The Poems of Emily Dickinson[1937].

Emily Dickinson’s poems made a remarkable difference in understanding the modern poetry. Hence, it goes without saying that hers was a major influence upon the mature readers of that period. If from among the gems of her creation we take at least a few to judge and analyze critically we will be able to understand why the world of literature still makes room for such a rare genius! Emily Dickinson’s fascination with Death comes out in the much read and critically appreciated lines: “Because I could not stop for Death–/He kindly stopped for me-/The Carriage held but just ourselves-/And Immortality.

Immortality also creeps into the lines and is pictured as the third person in the carriage ,mentioned in the first stanza. To Emily Dickinson, Death appeared in various guises. At times she treated Death as a courtly lover sometimes again as the dreadful murderer. “Because I could not…”or “A Clock Stopped” deal with the tremendous and irresistible power of Death . These poems also highlight the physical transformation and the final isolation that Death involves. Sometimes she had stressed upon the ghastly aspects of Death by her willing use of the funeral and the religious imagery.

For example, “I heard the fly buzz when I died .. ” Quite difficult ,no doubt, for the contemporary readers to understand such invincible power of Life that it goes beyond the Ultimate Barrier of Death too!! Emily Dickinson fell in love many a time . Her possible lovers, as suggested by her biographers were: Benjamin Newton, Charles Wadsworth, Emmons et al. From the early sentimental love lyrics to the religious-mystical love-utterances , we are sure to find a wide range in Emily Dickinson’s love poetry.

From among her early love lyrics we get one poem starting with “ I started early –Took my dog–/And visited the Sea–/The Mermaids in the Basement/Came out to look at me. ” The word “Early” holds the key to the interpretation of the poem. It means that the young girl is on a journey ,un-attempted before. Gradually, the tone changes from that of childlike innocence to a mellower awareness. The newly-aroused emotions of the girl and her fear at the thought of the Sea’s complete possession of her are expressed in a verse that is suggestive of shock and renunciation of life’s prime forces: love, sex, beauty so forth,-

“And He-He followed-close behind-/I felt his Silver Heel/Upon my Ankle—Then my shoes/Would overflow with pearl-/Until we met the Solid Town-/No one He seemed to know–/And bowing with a mighty look–/At me-the Sea withdrew. ” Examining all the associations clustered around the Sea , beauty, freedom , haughtiness, male power coupled with shy nature of the female we assume that the poem intends to express the emotional and physical effects of a lover’s advances. The girl nearly gives in to it but her life of control and proves stronger than this short-lived temptation and she beats a retreat!

Dickinson’s images are powerful, her “dash” means a lot like her lonely existence and her poems help her win an immortal place in the hearts of her readers because of their unique and universal appeal! Works and References 1. Sewall R. B. :The Life of Emily Dickinson, Boston, 1978. 2. Whicher G. F. :This was a poet, Michigan, 1957. Other Sources 1. High Beam Encyclopedia[http://www. encyclopedia. com/doc/1E1-DickinsoE. html] 2. http://www. womenshistory. about. com/library/bio/bldickinson. htm

The two poems under investigation in this paper, Death is a Dialogue by Emily Dickinson and Death by William Butler Yeats are short commentaries on death and what it represents for human beings. As it shall be seen, the poems evince a similar approach to the death theme, although they also show the marks of different historical contexts. Both poets are extremely original in their thinking and writing, nevertheless it is possible to identify the influences that molded their work. In her poem, Dickinson regards death as a mere separation between the body and the spirit before the passage into the afterlife.

The brief poem has the form of a dramatic sequence, being structured as a dialogue between death and the human spirit. Yeats’ poem also speaks of death in derisive and ironic terms. Although the tone of the poem is indisputably ironic, the poem is severed by inner tensions: man seems to be able to conquer death but, at the same time, death holds absolute sway over his life. Essentially, the two poems are comparable in their view of death, each transposing the ceaseless battle between the proud and lofty human spirit and the merciless death.

Dickinson’s poem imagines a contention between death and the human spirit. The ‘dust’ is a metaphor for the material world that has only limited power when compared to the world of eternity. Dickinson shows death to have a limited scope: it can only act within the domain of matter and it cannot touch the human spirit:

Death is a Dialogue between

The Spirit and the Dust.

‘Dissolve’ says Death — The Spirit ‘Sir

I have another Trust’ – (Dickinson 217)

The term “trust” is very significant, pointing to Dickinson’s desire to establish belief in the afterlife. The death of the body is inevitable, but the spirit will triumph over the coarse matter in the end. Trust is opposed in the next stanza to “doubt”. This contrast enhances even further the idea of the ultimate victory of the spirit:

Death doubts it — Argues from the Ground —

The Spirit turns away

Just laying off for evidence

An Overcoat of Clay. (Dickinson 217)

Death “argues from the ground”, being therefore nailed down in the material world and able to bring only scientific arguments in its own favor, while the spirit proudly produces the ultimate evidence for its triumph: it strips off the coat of clay, i.e. the body, and wanders away.  According to Thomas W. Ford, this dramatic sequence shows Dickinson’s desire to believe in eternity and heaven and to reject the rational, scientific proof: “The ‘Spirit’ in the dialogue represents Emily Dickinson’s desire to believe in eternity, the ‘Dust’ represents the observed facts” (Ford 126). The battle between the rational and irrational is obvious in these lines.

Dickinson twists the argument in favor of the human spirit, letting irrationality show its evidence and denying the validity of the scientific approaches to death. Thomas W. Ford observes that Dickison’s attitude towards death was markedly influenced by her tensioned relationship with religion, especially Puritanism. As the critic notes, Dickinson’s inner struggle with ultimate acceptance of religion is obvious in some of her letters and throughout her work: “Dickinson early in life was seriously worried over being left out of “Christ’s love” since she had never personally experienced any form of conversion.

Her interest in death was an aspect of a continuing and profound concern over her own salvation” (Ford 39). Dickinson’s personal struggle with the acceptance of faith and the influence of Puritanical thought are both reflected in her poem. It can be even said that the struggle portrayed in the poem resembles the battle between rational thought and faith, which took place in Dickinson’s own mind.

Yeats’ poem Death was published in the verse collection The Winding Stair and Other Poems that appeared in 1933. Yeats is one of the most influential modernists and he is well known for his endeavor to create his own mythology in his works. The poem under analysis seems to be severed in two parts. The first part shows man’s permanent struggle with death and his tendency to pile all his hopes and fears around the concept of death. The second part brings the opposite view to light: man is also a murderer and he dominates death through his consummate knowledge of its inner workings. The first part of the poem compares the reaction of animals and that of humans in front of death:

Nor dread nor hope attend

A dying animal;

A man awaits his end

Dreading and hoping all… (Yeats 3)

While animals are indifferent to the meaning of death and only react to it as they would to any other natural phenomena, man is constantly tormented by the thought of death. Yeats observes the paradoxical attitude of man in front of death: on the one hand, man clings to the thought of death with all his hopes and dreams and, at the same time, he associates death with his greatest and darkest fears. The second part of the poem almost reverses the initial perspective on death: man is the master of death, through his intimate knowledge of it:

A great man in his pride

Confronting murderous men

Casts derision upon

Supersession of breath;

He knows death to the bone –

Man has created death. (Yeats 3)

The last line of the stanza might seem an overstatement, at first glance. Yeats’ liberal assertion that “man has created death” has many different implications. On the one hand, man is able to be a murderer and thus he “knows death to the bone”. This is not the sole explanation however. The creation of death is obviously a paradox. In his pride, man does not fear death and is even able to deride. Harold Bloom contends that the poem implies death does not exist in fact, as Yeats had also argued in A Vision (Bloom 372). In this sense, the idea proposed by Yeats seems to be very similar to that of Emily Dickinson.

However, on a closer look, the Irish poet entertains a somewhat different view of humanity’s relationship with death. As a modernist, he sees the resourcefulness of man’s creative spirit as apt to face death and defeat it. Man proudly ignores biological death not because he knows his soul will go to a Christian heaven afterwards, but because he believes in the impossibility of death. According to Yeats, man does not find salvation in the divinity as such, but in the creative forces that animate everything. The poet explores death from a modernist and aesthetic perspective: man is an inventor and a dauntless spirit and for him death does not exist.

Thus, Dickinson’s and Yeats’ poems reveal different views of the same theme, each being influenced by the historical context in which he or she created. Both explore death from the point of view of man’s contention with biological constraints. However, the poets reach different conclusions: Dickinson takes refuge in the idea of salvation while Yeats advocates for man’s artistic powers.