Essay about Emily Dickinson Poem Analysis

“I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled poets to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean” (Socrates). What does it mean to be this type of poet? How can someone accomplish such success in poetry, the answer is just two words Emily Dickinson. Emily Dickinson spent a large portion of her life in isolation, not because she was forced to or because she was ill, Dickinson simply wanted to be alone and because of her isolation she became one of the greatest female poets of all time. Emily Dickinson set the bar high for other female poets and created some of the most renowned poems in the world. The two poems “The Soul Selects Her Own Society” and “Tell all the Truth but Tell it Slant” are drastically different poems that tell two different stories, but there are some aspects that cause them to be similar: Imagery, tone, and the statement that the two poems make.

She describes their movement as aimless, and careless because of their lack of motivation to struggle on, seeing life as “ought” or nothing compared to what it once was before the loss. The reader can imagine being in the position of the sufferer; very stagnant, and lifeless almost like a corpse which is what makes this form of diction so evoking.

It appears as if I gained such massive extents of life morals propelled at me; however, I questioned whether or not the fact that I knew her was worth the grieving filled with such pain and agony. The favorable and pleasant memories felt to hurt even more prodigiously than the actual unfortunate event of her concluding her life.

Although the tone is revealed and supported throughout the whole poem it is already solidified in the first stanza. The first stanza opens up what is going on and what the poem is going to be about. Just by reading the first line it explains how busy she is that even she could not stop for death. After reading that she was too busy for death we learn that death stopped for her in which she gladly joined him on his carriage. The tone is then reassured in the last stanza of this poem. Despite throughout the passage it is discovered in many ways that the speaker was satisfied with the way things went. In the last passage it says that she can remember the day like it was yesterday.

While she was busy with life, “Because I could not stop for death-“death made time for her “He kindly stopped for me-“. At this point the speaker has already died. She speaks of Immortality and Civility as traits of death. While she has her life flashing before her eyes she is getting to know death in the process. You can see how her attitude of acceptance changes the whole mood of the poem as she goes through her child hood while saying “We passes the School, where Children stove at Recess-“ This shapes our understanding to be one that is understanding to her situation. It’s as if she was thrown out a window but you can see she is peacefully falling or as if there is gratitude in her death where she is thankful that she doesn’t have to experience life anymore because of the trauma that can come with it. As she traveled through her life to the point where she came to her grave which I believe is “A swelling in the ground”. You can see that she feels complete. There are key words that make this poem useful in the comparison to “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost like “Immortality and Eternity” to represent the forever

She writes about being pregnant and feeling as though she might die in childbirth in “Before the Birth of One of Her Children”. In this poem, although she is scared of dying,

The poem is a reality poem about real life. It infers about memories, nature, and the cycle of life and death. Things can only stay beautiful for so long, but the circle of life will continue. The ending seems like the world is over, but in reality it will keep on going.

The subject of death, including her own was a very prevalent theme in Emily Dickinson’s poems and letters. Some may find her preoccupation with death morbid, but this was not unusual for her time period. The mindset during Ms. Dickinson’s time was that of being prepared to die, in the 19th century people died of illness and accidents at an alarming rate, not to mention the Civil War had a high number of casualties, she also lived 15 years of her youth next to a cemetery. Dickinson’s view on death was never one of something to be feared she almost romanized death, in her poem “Because I Could not Stop for Death”, she actually personifies death while narrating from beyond the grave. In the first stanza she states “I could not stop for

The narrator states, “Too jostled were Our Souls to speak.” The author personifies “Our Souls” by giving them the potential, but inability, to speak. The personification of their souls exaggerates how deeply these people are disturbed. The soul is the source of the people’s spirituality and the disturbance this death causes in the people's souls could lead them to reconsider their spiritual beliefs of life and death. Silencing the people’s souls symbolizes how some of their spirits die along with the woman. Discomfort from this upsetting situation and having uncertain spiritual beliefs are unfortunate outcomes of the woman’s

     Emily Dickinson is one of the most famous authors in American History, and a good amount of that can be attributed to her uniqueness in writing. In Emily Dickinson's poem 'Because I could not stop for Death,' she characterizes her overarching theme of Death differently than it is usually described through the poetic devices of irony, imagery, symbolism, and word choice.

In the poems “The Widow’s Lament in Springtime” and “Lament,” each poet provides an account of a widow grieving for her late husband, but in a different manner. In “The Widow’s Lament in Springtime,” William Carlos Williams describes the widow grieving for her husband every year during spring since his death. In “Lament,” Edna St. Vincent Millay shows how the widow grieves for her husband by providing their children with his belongings. Although the widows grieve in contrasting ways, both of them seem to share a similar act in common. Throughout “The Widow’s Lament in Springtime” and “Lament,” each widow takes part in an act of remembrance towards her late husband.

As shown in one of her poems titled “I measure every Grief I meet” she states “I wonder if it hurts to live – And if They have to try –And whether – could They choose between – It would not be – to die – “(lines 5-8). In knowing that it leans more towards the death if aimed towards Dickinson and her death. Her sanity and purpose have died, and the disarray inside her mind is compared to the mourners at a funeral walking backward and forward. Then she goes into the funeral beginning and these mourners sit down, and the funeral begins to take place, however, with an Emily Dickinson poem, the meaning can’t be as straightforward as this. The funeral suggests the loss of something, here is where the reader can begin to think on their own and reason. Who, or what, is this ‘Funeral in my brain’ for? Has she lost her reasoning and sense of purpose in life. Observe the end of the first stanza, Dickinson says that ‘it seemed / That Sense was breaking through’. (line 4) If sense is her common sense, her reason, and her sanity is breaking through, that could note the realization of the loss of herself. “Of course, in this case the experience itself is one of disassociation. Since the speaker adds

Emily Dickinson once said, “Dying is a wild night and a new road.” Some people welcome death with open arms while others cower in fear when confronted in the arms of death. Through the use of ambiguity, metaphors, personification and paradoxes Emily Dickinson still gives readers a sense of vagueness on how she feels about dying. Emily Dickinson inventively expresses the nature of death in the poems, “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain (280)”, “I Heard a fly Buzz—When I Died—(465)“ and “Because I could not stop for Death—(712)”.

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born December 10, 1830, into an influential family in Amherst, Massachusetts. Her father helped found Amherst College, where Emily later attended between 1840 and 1846. She never married and died in the house where she was born on May 15, 1886.

We are immediately made aware at the beginning of the poem that there is nothing out of place about this day except that they lost a family member. Dickinson was letting it be known that while the rest of the world continued as usual, they sat there in a room watching one of their suffering family members take her last breath. Death makes life different somehow. As Dickinson states, “-this to Us Made Nature Different” (lines 3,4), she tells us that when her family member died it changed them. This poem shows the raw emotion of sadness and the effect of grief overtaken her in just 6 short stanzas.