Emily Dickinson was a famous American poet whose work was published in the late 19th century. Her writing style was seen by many as unconventional due to her use of “dashes and syntactical fragments”(81), which was edited out by her original publishers. These fragmented statements and dashes were added to emphasize certain lines and subjects to accentuate the theme of her poems. Emily Dickinson wrote descriptive, moving poems on death, religion, and love. Her poems continue to create gripping discussions among scholars on the meaning behind her words.
Emily Dickinson was thought to have an obsession with death, which could be caused by two things. Firstly in the later stages of her life, many of her friends and family members passed away. Secondly, there was a window in her house where she could overlook the cemetery witnessing numerous burials. This caused her to have a constant reminder of mortality and her thoughts frequently turned to death. Poems like 280, “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain” (87) illustrate a clear insight into how she was affected by the frequent presence of death. In the poem, Dickinson describes a funeral service that she observes. “And Mourners to and fro/ Keep treading – treading – till it seemed/ That Sense was breaking through”(87). For the mourners, it can be difficult to accept the death of a loved one. People are moving from person to person, trying to make sense of the tragedy that has occurred. Dickinson describes mourners ‘treading’ around,
The poetry of Emily Dickinson is one of the most recognizable of the 19th century. Dickinson’s poetry stands out because of its unconventional use of capitalization and punctuation. Her poems contain capitalized words which are not normally capitalized. Her poems are noted for the frequent use of the dash. Literary scholars have attempted to interpret Dickinson’s unconventional capitalization and punctuation. Some believe that it was merely part of Dickinson’s penmanship (Weisbuch 73). They therefore edit Dickinson’s poetry and publish them in standardized form. Others believe that the capitalization and punctuation were a conscious effort on Dickinson’s part. These scholars notice the little nuances of Dickinson’s dashes, such as whether
Death is a controversial and sensitive subject. When discussing death, several questions come to mind about what happens in our afterlife, such as: where do you go and what do you see? Emily Dickinson is a poet who explores her curiosity of death and the afterlife through her creative writing ability. She displays different views on death by writing two contrasting poems: one of a softer side and another of a more ridged and scary side. When looking at dissimilar observations of death it can be seen how private and special it is; it is also understood that death is inevitable so coping with it can be taken in different ways. Emily Dickinson’s poems “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” and “I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died” show both
Emily Dickinson is one of the most important American poets of the 1800s. Dickinson, who was known to be quite the recluse, lived and died in the town of Amherst, Massachusetts, spending the majority of her days alone in her room writing poetry. What few friends she did have would testify that Dickinson was a rather introverted and melancholy person, which shows in a number of her poems where regular themes include death and mortality. One such poem that exemplifies her “dark side” is, “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”. In this piece, Dickinson tells the story of a soul’s transition into the afterlife showing that time and death have outright power over our lives and can make what was once significant become meaningless.
Though death is accepted by some, others dread the idea of it. Those that are terrified of death can become absolutely consumed with horror. The poem “I Felt a Funeral in My Brain” by Emily Dickinson describes a scene in which the character is suffering through mental deterioration and lacks the ability to control their emotions. The poem depicts the weakening of the character’s mind through the imagined occurrence of a funeral within her brain. The distressful situation of the funeral caused “mourners, to and fro, [to keep] treading, treading” (Source B). Once the mourners were seated for the funeral to begin, the “service like a drum, kept beating, beating, till I thought my mind was going numb” (Source B) and the agitated mood of the funeral increased. The alarming beat of the drum caused such commotion that the character became dazed and traumatized further. The
Emily Dickinson is well-known due to the fact that she uses an immense amount of death in her poetry; she is also known as being reclusive and death-obsessed. Although other poets don’t typically use large amounts of death in his or her own poetry, Dickinson decided to take her own path in order to get her point across; meanwhile, some found her obsession with death rather disturbing. On the other hand, death could be interpreted through various forms of symbolism. For example, death can symbolize things such as equality, religion, and journeys. Additionally, death can be used to express the loss of a loved one or even an internal loss of yourself, such as despair. Her poems about death
One of the prevalent themes of Emily’s work is death. Since she wrote about her inner world and troubles, death as a theme could not be avoided. Emily Dickinson had to face the losing friends to death. Several deaths of family members, including her mother, father and a nephew helped contribute to the theme in her poetry. These events affected her health but she found a way to cope with the idea of death with her poetry. She developed an attitude towards death, seeing it as a transition from mortality to immortality. She accepted its inevitability and tried to make
Emily Dickinson is a well known American poet who has had a great impact in society with her literature. “Her legendary poems such as ‘Because I could not stop for death’, ‘Success is counted Sweetest’, and plenty others, have not only found a place on the shelves of major libraries, but have also occupied a convenient spot in the syllabi of eminent universities” (“Emily Dickinson Biography” 1). One unique aspect of her writing is the punctuation which, she’s also known for (Spacey 4). Emily had a great passion for writing but lived most of her life in isolation. “Suddenly, she withdrew from nearly all social activity and began writing furiously” (Johnson 17). The majority of her poems were only seen by friends and people she
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
In the poem "I Felt a Funeral in My Brain" Emily Dickinson exposes a person's intense anguish and suffering as they sink into a state of extreme madness. The poem is a carefully constructed analysis of the speaker's own mental experience. Dickinson uses the image of a funeral-service to symbolize the death of the speaker's sanity. The poem is terrifying for the reader as it depicts a realization of the collapse of one's mental stability, which is horrifying for most. The reader experiences the horror of the speaker's descending madness as the speaker's mind disintegrates and loses its grasp on reality. "I Felt a Funeral in My Brain,"
Death is inevitable, although many of us push it to the back of our heads its eventually going to happen. Poet Emily Dickinson accepted this, and enjoyed writing over half of her poems about death. We all think about death in different ways it scares a lot of us, but those of us who are religious look forward to the afterlife in heaven, and are grateful for the mortal life that we lived. Therefore, some of these poems depicted death as being a lonely ominous journey, while other poems displayed death as being an enjoyable ride from one life to another. Dickinson changes her views on death as she grows older, and seems to be less fearful of death. We can see this in her poems with the similar theme of death in, “I heard a fly buss-when I died” and “Because I could not stop for death.”
Two of Emily Dickinson’s poems, “I heard a Fly buzz-when I died” and “Because I could not stop for Death” are both written about life’s stopping point, death. Although the poems are written by the same poet, both poems view death in a different manner. Between the two poems, one views death as having an everlasting life while the other anticipates everlasting life, only to realize it does not exist. While both poems are about death, both poems also illustrate that the outcome of death is a mysterious experience that can only be speculated upon with the anticipation of everlasting life.
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 Dickinson a modern romantic writer, whose poems considered imaginative and natural, but also dark as she uses death as the main theme many times in her writings. She made the death look natural and painless since she wanted the reader to look for what after death and not be stuck in that single moment. In her poems imagination play a big role as it sets the ground for everything to unfold in a magical way. The speakers in Dickinson’s poetry, are sharp-sighted observers who see the inescapable limitations of their societies as well as their imagined and imaginable escapes. To make the abstract tangible, to define meaning without confining it, to inhabit a house that never became a prison, Dickinson created in her writing a distinctively elliptical language for expressing what was possible but not yet realized. She turned increasingly to this style that came to define her writing. The poems are rich in aphorism and dense
Emily Dickinson was one of the many famous American poets whose work was published in the 19th century. Her writing style was seen as unconventional due to her use of “dashes and syntactical fragments”(81), which was later edited out by her original publishers. These fragmented statements and dashes were added to give emphasis to certain lines and subjects to get her point across. Even though Emily Dickinson was thought to be a recluse, she wrote descriptive, moving poems on death, religion, and love. Her poems continue to create gripping discussions among scholars on the meaning behind her poems.
Emily Dickinson is one of the most interesting female poets of the nineteenth century. Every author has unique characteristics about him/her that make one poet different from another, but what cause Emily Dickinson to be so unique are not only the words she writes, but how she writes them. Her style of writing is in a category of its own. To understand how and why she writes the way she does, her background has to be brought into perspective. Every poet has inspiration, negative or positive, that contributes not only to the content of the writing itself, but the actual form of writing the author uses to express his/her personal talents. Emily Dickinson is no different. Her childhood and adult experiences and culture form