Emily Dickinson Diction

Emily Dickinson was an exceptional writer through the mid-late 1800’s. She never published any of her writings and it wasn’t until after her death that they were even discovered. The complexity of understanding her poems is made prevalent because of the fact that she, the author, cannot expound on what her writing meant. This causes others to have to speculate and decide for themselves the meaning of any of her poems. There are several ways that people can interpret Emily Dickinson’s poems; readers often give their opinion on which of her poems present human understanding as something boundless and unlimited or something small and limited, and people always speculate Dickinson’s view of the individual self.

She viewed conformity as a chain around the neck or enslavement to society. On line 8 of her poem “Much Madness is divinest sense”it says “Demur- You’re straightway dangerous- and handled with a chain” (line 8). This line is saying that people who stand out or cause doubt in a situation are dangerous and are eventually chained or tied up so that they will no longer cause doubt in other people’s minds. People are scared of things that are different and would rather chain them up in the corner than allow them to be different. Richard Wilbur wrote that “Emily Dickinson found that she must refuse to become a professing Christian. (pg. 1131)” This was yet another way that she stood out and did not conform to society. While many people were professing Christians during that time, she chose to worship in a different way. She was not concerned with what others thought, she was more concerned with how she was going to do things and this changed the way she wrote poetry.

Dickinson’s tone seems to portray suffering throughout the beginning of her poems, but gradually develops into a more hopeful and optimistic attitude

In Edith Wharton’s novel Ethan Frome, set in 1881 Starkfield, Massachusetts, the protagonist Ethan Frome and his love Mattie Silver commit an act that can be viewed as delusional and eccentric. Yet Emily Dickinson wrote “Much madness is divinest Sense--/To a discerning Eye--.” Indeed, Ethan and Mattie’s attempt to commit suicide by coasting into an elm tree initially seems irrational but can actually be judged reasonable by a reader with a “discerning [e]ye.” In fact, one actually understands the reasons Ethan and Mattie desire to die when one looks at Ethan’s miserable past, Mattie’s deplorable life, and their bleak future without each other. Ethan’s miserable past explains his suicide attempt.

Struggles between opposing pressures of conformity and individuality which can also bring about connection is successfully explored by Dickinson through the depiction of the persona’s conflict between a desire to belong yet desiring individuality as an artist, which ultimately results in a harmony between the two personas due to similar desires.

Her themes of love, death, immortality, change, and uncertainty are not “recondite ones” (Vendler), but her unique viewpoints on them are. Her syntax is not that of an author trying to hammer a message into their audience’s heads, but rather imitates the natural flow of a person’s thoughts and the disorganization of it, almost in a Modernist or Post-Modernist way. Ironically, the only thing Dickinson portrays as certain and constant is a cycle of change. Indeed, every time period is a time period of change, and today seems like that more than ever. However, Dickinson’s poems show that change is not necessarily something to fear, as so many have, but something to accept, and perhaps even

The last two lines of the poem are a timid reflection on what might happen “Had I the Art to stun myself/ With Bolts—of Melody!” (23-24). The idea that creation is a power that can get loose and injure even the creator illuminates why in this poem the artist positions herself firmly as a mere spectator. In these first two poems, we meet a Dickinson who is not entirely familiar to us—even though we are accustomed to her strong desire for privacy, these poems can be startling in the way they reveal the intensity of Dickinson’s fears. She is, after all, shrinking from what is dearest to her—nature, one of her favorite subjects, becomes a harsh judge, and poetry, her favored medium of communication, can suddenly render the reader “impotent” and the writer “stun[ned]” (19, 23). The extremity of her positions in shrinking from the small and beautiful things she loves creates the sense that this is just the beginning of a journey by leaving so much room for change.

In “Much Madness is the divinest Sense,” Dickinson emphatically establishes a theme of madness within the context of the poem. This poem is rather difficult to read and not feel that it is inspirited by Dickinson’s own life of reclusion, which many have presented as a symptom of her insanity. “Much Madness is the divinest Sense” discombobulates the notion of what’s crazy and what’s not, it’s a piece for every person who has ever pondered “Am I insane…or is the world completely mad?” Dickinson poignantly reveals how what is accepted

She opens the poem reflecting on the start of her first episode, all while personifying her soul telling it sing, but writes that her “strings were snapt.” The string is a metaphor for her mind and the word-choice to describe her mind is identical to the flow of her maniacal brain waves: quick, charged and aggressive. She explains how mind is mended through the pace at which she can put words onto the page. The second day escalates her mind to the point where she loses control over it. Dickinson’s uses of the dash points to the distinctive operation of her thought processes-mind to page. Another poem, They Shut Me Up In Prose” displayed how manic-depressive individuals are mistreated, even shut out due to their uncontrollable behavior. Her state of being influences her judgment and social behaviors and she battles with the idea of “stillness”. The word “still” is almost used as a form of mockery, “Could themselves have peeped — / And seen my Brain – go round — / They might as wise have lodged a Bird / For Treason – in the Pound -.” The bird is used as a metaphor for her mind, to describe the foolishness lodged in a request for her to remain stagnant. The overall theme of outsiders seeking to mute the behavior of patients with mental illness shows the human desire to attempt to mold the unknown to the norms of society. Dickinson’s work has the reader reflect on all the

In the beginning, Dickinson unifies the people of the world by using “We grow accustomed to the Dark” and then transitions to only “the Bravest -- grope a little--” (1,13). Initially, everyone shares one common experience: the cold, iron grip of darkness. It is a universal feeling that every person passes through. However, only a few individuals dare to venture out and challenge the obstacles of life. Consequently, Dickinson’s use of diction signifies two different kinds of people in the

In Dickinson's poem “This is My Letter to the World,” she is expressing her reclusiveness towards the world. What Emily means by this is that she wrote a letter to the world, but the world does not know who she is since she never leaves her home. She also writes about what nature has taught her in hopes to teach other people lessons. In the closing of the poem she asks the readers to not judge her harshly on what she has written. The overall theme of this poem is that if people were to judge, they should judge by the truth. She does not want to be judged harshly for separating herself from the world, she just wants to belong. She uses many devices through all of her poems to help convey the overall theme. In the poem “This is My Letter to the World,” Dickson uses the personification of nature, rhyme scheme, and metaphor to show her overall theme.

This poem talks to the mentally ill. It reminds those living with a psychological disorder that their lives and thinking are valuable. Thus, imagination and enjoyment should not be constrained by the stigma of having a different worldview. Moreover, it uses metaphors to connect both world: the insane and the sane.

In 'Much Madness is divinest Sense' (435), a definition poem, Emily Dickinson criticizes society's inability to accept rebellion, arguing that the majority is the side that should in fact be considered 'mad.' The perception of madness and insanity are a common theme among Dickinson's poetry, as she fought against society's tainted view of herself as crazy. She focuses on how judgmental society is on non conformist views when she describes the majority as 'discerning' (line 2). As similar to most of her poetry, she writes in iambic meter and uses slant rhyme, as lines one, three, and seven end with 'Sense', 'Madness', 'dangerous', and lines six and eight, in 'sane' and 'Chain' in seemingly rhyme scheme. Dickinson credits the majority

In Dickinson’s poem, “Because I could not stop for Death,” there is much impression in the tone, in symbols, and in the use of imagery that exudes creativity. One might undoubtedly agree to an eerie, haunting, if not frightening, tone in Dickinson’s poem. Dickinson uses controlling adjectives—“slowly” and “passed”—to create a tone that seems rather placid. For example, “We slowly drove—He knew no haste / …We passed the School … / We passed the Setting Sun—,” sets a slow, quiet, calm, and dreamy atmosphere (5, 9, 11,

This poem conjures images of a solemn ceremony in which the soul reigns superior by shutting out everyone, including the emperor, similar to the shutting out of everyone that Dickinson did. In one of Dickinson’s most famous poems, “I heard a Fly buzz,” the theme of death is presented as well as a symptomatic characteristic of bi-polar disorder. The poem itself epitomizes her preoccupation with death and the macabre and also shows how the small, normally ignorable sound of a fly buzzing becomes the only thing heard, she magnifies this sound in a situation when it seems that everything else is much more important, but this inability to drown out extraneous noises is typical of someone suffering from manic-depression. The form of this poem employs all of Dickinson’s formal patterns: trimeter and tetrameter iambic lines, her specific use of the dash to interrupt the meter of the poem, and it is in ABCB rhyme scheme.