Emily Dickinson's I Felt A Funeral In My Brain

In the first line, “I felt a funeral, in my brain / And Mourners to and fro”, the speaker imagines a funeral inside her brain and feels mourners going back and forth, which could mean that her thoughts are full of sorrow and her mind is going crazy. One interesting thing I saw in this poem is that the speaker does not want readers to think that she is comparing her feelings to a funeral. She does not say “It felt like a funeral, in my brain” instead she says “I felt a funeral, in my brain”. Changing this part would give readers a

Emily Dickinson’s poem, “After great pain, a formal feeling comes-“is a profound portrayal of the debilitating process of grief human beings undergo when confronted with a horrific tragedy. The response to that ultimate pain is the predominance of numbness, “After great pain, a formal feeling comes-/The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs-“(1-2). This is a poem that must be read slowly to become saturated in the melancholy, the dehumanization of suffering as it affects each aspect of the body without reference to the chaotic emotionality of it. The abundance of metaphors within Dickinson’s poem provides the means to empathize the necessity of numbness. It is also through the use of punctuation and capitalization, depicting the presence of a

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.

The battle between emotional ties between a significant other or one’s self, brings a multitude of sentiments that are brought about by the impact that each leave. I felt a funeral, in my brain” was written was written around 1861, around the time period Emily Dickinson developed a new and obscure way of writing starting from 1889. The continuation of the revision and reproduction of the work Michael Drayton sonnet “Idea’s Mirror,” can be viewed in his poem “since there is no help” in reflection to his attempts to woo a lady. Published in 1921, “the lament of Springtime, “ by William Carlos Williams’s presents the theme of losing someone to death and the grief implementing the an understanding mood. The mood created by the authors Emily Dickinson, Michael Drayton, and William Carlos Williams develops a heartfelt sorrow and sympathy towards the speaker and their personal relationships in each poem.

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.

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,

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain during an in class Essay Emily Dickinson's poems are in many ways very different from the Enlightenment writings and also the Romantic movement. In her poem, “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,” her style is completely unique in terms of punctuation, meaning, and imagery. By discussing her own feelings and inner thoughts rather than just glorifying nature like many poets of her day, Dickinson's poems are insightful on human emotions and help us understand her emotions. One way that she portrays her feelings is through word choice and sentence structure.

In some instances within literature, writers surprise readers by incorporating ideas that the reader may or may not expect. Within Emily Dickinson’s poem “I heard a Fly Buzz When I Died”, readers are introduced to a ghostly speaker that discusses the scene of their deathbed. Readers are exposed to many surprises throughout various aspects of the poem.

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,"

In the second stanza of the poem the poet presents the reader with a funeral setting. The mourners are all seated, and a service begins. The poet describes this service as being quite intense ("like a Drum (that) Kept beating—beating"). The intensity of the service causes the poet’s mind to go numb. The numbness represents the death of her mind.

Suddenly, she changes the tone of her poem and portrays death as deceitful for leaving her alone in a dark grave. Both poems utilize personification, and yet the poets continue to write with strong, distinct

In the poem “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,” Emily Dickinson uses symbolism to convey some sort of mental funeral that the speaker is experiencing. The funeral image that Dickinson depicts in the first line of the poem: “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,” does not literally represent a funeral, but it is used to symbolism a mental breakdown and agony that the speaker is going through. By using this symbolism, the speaker is imagining the death of old ways of thought. Dickinson writes that when the funeral service was “like a Drum—“ (Dickinson 43) and that it “Kept beating—beating—till I thought My Mind was going numb—“ (43), leaving readers believing that the speaker is going mad. By depicting this image, Dickinson reveals that with the death of old thought; there is some sort of numbness or pain that is necessary to “progress to a better state” (Goldfarb 2). By repeating the beating sound two times, along with the rhyming sequence in the previous lines of the poem, Dickinson is stressing the numbness and the importance of it.

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

Poetry has had an astounding effect on the world by shining a light on human fears and emotions and revealing the deeper meanings of life. Poetry can release emotions and transform you into a completely different world, which can range anywhere from enchanting to dark and ominous. People use poems around the world to express emotions and they are constantly evolving. The beauty in poetry is how unique and diverse it is and the countless interpretations that can come out of it. Emily Dickinson is an American poet who incorporated intense emotions about life and death into her poems. One of her poems, “I felt a Funeral in my Brain”, highlights the tragedies in her journey of life which helps develop the dark mood held by this poem. She uses grief in the majority of her poems to portray different aspects of her life experiences. In this poem in particular, she questions not only herself, but the world around her. Emily Dickinson wrote this poem during a dark time in her life when she faced many issues and she used poetry to cope and express herself. Emily Dickinson’s “I felt a Funeral in my Brain” demonstrates a descent into insanity and uses a funeral as a metaphor for her depression.