Emily Dickinsons Poetry

Amerika knjievnost

Prof. G. Matas

Ines Grgurinovi
3.god
List of contents

Introduction1

1. Nature. 2

2. The symbolism of birds.......................................... 5

3. Inner world, solitude and friendship... 7

4. Love..... 10

5. Conclusion13

6. Bibliography14
Introduction

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) was born in a small New England village. Even though she

rarely left Amherst, she was a major American writer, who maintained intimate friendships

and her life was less than ordinary. She renounced some of what most people she knew

experienced.

She wrote quietly, for herself and for her close friends, and did not seek the fame.

Dickinson wrote 1775 poems, only seven of which were published in her lifetime.

She examines fear, studies pain, but also explored happiness, passion for life.

This essay will examine, in short lines, her attitude towards the nature, love and friendship,

her inner world colored in the dark color of solitude or absence. Also, the symbolism of birds

will be mentioned and discussed, chosen among many other symbols that she used.

Her writings about nature in fact discuss themes of much greater importance, like the

relationship between people and nature.

Also, other poems that talk about love or her mind are in most cases reduced to pain and

depression.

She was an eccentric, she was different, and was and still is interesting.
1. Nature

One of the themes that occur in Emily Dickinsons poetry is the nature. She presents her

impressions of a moment: seeing a bird that behaves naturally, unaware of the presence of the

speaker.

A bird came down the walk:

He did not know I saw

The speaker tries to come closer and to observe how the bird eats a worm or offer it food. But

that act makes the bird fly off.

Like one in danger; cautious,

I offered him a crumb,

And he unrolled his feathers

And rowed him softer home.

The behavior of the bird indicates that it is the wild creature of nature.

He bit an angle-worm in halves

and ate the fellow, raw.

Although, the birds caution in nature,

He glanced with rapid eyes

That hurried all abroad,

coming down the walk,

A bird came down the walk

and referring to the terms like beads and velvet,

They looked like frightened beads, I thought;

He stirred his velvet head.

all indicate civilized values.

That is in contrast with the fact that the bird ate the worm raw, which inevitably emphasizes

its wilderness.

The poem A bird came down the walk talks about the nature in terms of danger, wilderness

and beauty that lies in all these things. In fact, Emily Dickinson captured a few moments of

life in the nature, describing the act of feeding, which is an essential part of life. Also, the

escape from the danger depicts the instinct to stay alive. She seems to be fascinated with this

liveliness, despite her infatuation with death and her attraction to morbidity.

So, this poem is a representation of the separation from humans, who walk down the

sidewalks, instead of paths, who make technological advances every day and move away from

the nature.
The bird here was given some more sophisticated (almost human) characteristics: divides up

the food before eating it drinks from a grass- alliteration gives a refinement. Also, the bird

becomes polite by letting the beetle pass by.

This represents the separation of humans from nature, too, showing the sophisticated and

civilized manners.

I have noticed that Dickinson describes nature in human terms, flowers, storm, sun- they all

are personified, both when she is describing just a moment or daily things in her own

particular way or as an announcement of an arrival or death.

The daisy follows soft the sun,

And when his golden walk is done,

Sits shyly at his feet.

In An awful tempest mashed the air, the storm represents the arrival of something bad, but

it ends in a lighter tone:

The morning lit, the birds arose;

The monster's faded eyes

Turned slowly to his native coast,

And peace was Paradise!

2. The symbolism of birds

The symbolism of the bird is various and there can always be numerous interpretations.

In this case it may symbolize a need for some nurture. Dickinson was quite a unique person,

had a rich inner world. It may be that a person like her has some different desires and needs

from the world surrounding her.

So we have a bird that eats a worm row on one side,

He bit an angle-worm in halves

And ate the fellow, raw.

and the rest of the world that usually uses cooked food.

It feels like Dickinson had a certain wilderness in her soul.

Birds have always been the symbol of soul. They represent the soul, flying free of the earth-

bound body and seeking the heaven. The birds represent a passage between the physical world

and spiritual worlds.

Hope is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all

In Hope is the thing with feathers, Dickinson uses a metaphor to describe hope, by comparing

it to a bird.

In this poem, the bird represents a feeling of expectation that never ends.

And never stops at all

We know that it is said about hope that it never dies. It lies in our heart sometimes, even

when we have nothing to say, even if we can not explain the belief in its force.

In its quite manner, hope helps us in the expectations of our tomorrow.

It is needed the most, however, in the moments of different difficulties. Hope frees the spirit,

which is essential for every mans inner world, because of the human nature.

And sweetest in the gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm.

3. Inner world, solitude and friendship

Emily Dickinson lived an introverted and reclusive life, was a spinster, and was thought of as

an eccentric. She was a prolific private poet and her poems are quite unique for the era in

which she wrote. She chose a seclusion-life and the outer world was an experience devoid of

integral reality to her.

However, she discovered the wealth of the inner life and that is where she found inspiration.

Her major themes are often connected to her depressive state of mind.

In the poem I felt a cleaving in my mind we can feel a psychological breakdown, a state of

depression.

I felt a cleaving in my mind

As if my brain had split;

I tried to match it, seam by seam,

but could not make them fit.

In the late 1850s, the Dickinsons befriended Samuel Bowles, the owner and editor-in-chief of

the Springfield Republican, and his wife, Mary. They visited the Dickinsons regularly for

years to come. During this time Emily sent him over three dozen letters and nearly fifty

poems.
During the 1850s, Emily's strongest and most affectionate relationship was with Susan

Gilbert. Emily sent her over three hundred letters over due to their friendship.

I could conclude that Dickinson felt good when she was with herself, mostly, because it

seems that connection with other people and friendships made her too vulnerable at moments.

The poem The soul selects her own societytalks about friendship amongst other thing. Her

souls strong identity is emphasized by the choices it makes when opening the doors to certain

people. It presents selecting and rejecting friends as the right of an individual.

The soul selects her own society,

Then shuts the door;

On her divine majority

Obtrude no more.

Dickinson was troubled from a young age by the death, especially the deaths of those who

were close to her, for example- her lover.

And I, could I stand by

And see you freeze,

 Without my right of frost,

Death's privilege?

Here, in I cannot live with you, she talks about the despair when lover have to be apart.

So we must keep apart,

You there, I here,

With just the door ajar

That oceans are,

And prayer,

And that pale sustenance,

Despair!

In this case, she regards death as her "right" and a "privilege," thereby making death a

desirable state, because it would torment her to live without him and therefore would prefer

them to die together.

Her solitude is reflected in her conversations with her own heart, like in Heart, we will

forget him! I believe that she was a fragile woman who wanted the warmth of a company

You may forget the warmth he gave

But, I also think that she was able to rationalize all the bad things that happened, and to make

herself go on.

Haste! Lest while youre lagging,

I may remember him!

4. Love

Love is one of major themes in Dickinsons poetry- in many of its forms, whether she speaks

about the incapability of being separated from the loved one by death or the mere absence of

the loved one and a hope for a reunion.

In I cannot live with you she, in a way, identifies herself with her lover and takes away the

importance from the fact that she is alive and successful, if he is dead or lost. She is lost

without him.

And were you lost, I would be,

Though my name

Rang loudest

On the heavenly fame.

But, even if he were not dead, they cannot be together.

And were you saved,

And I condemned to be
 Where you were not,

That self were hell to me.

All in all, they cannot be together in any case, neither can they live, nor die together.

Furthermore, If you were coming in the fall depicts 'his' absence. But, she can wait for the

return of her dearly beloved as long as it takes.

If you were coming in the fall,

Id brush the summer by,

With half a smile and half a spurn,

As housewives do fly.

Dickinson observed different aspects of love, but it seems that most of them were

embroidered with pain, sufferance and absence.

The title of the poem You Left Me indicates the physical or emotional separation from the

person she loves. It was probably a great, deep love because even a Heavenly Father would be

content with it.

You left me, sweet, two legacies, -

A legacy of love

A Heavenly Father would content,

Had He the offer of;

Clearly, all that remains after it is pain and emptiness.

You left me boundaries of pain

Capacious as the sea,

Between eternity and time,

Your consciousness and me.

5. Conclusion

If one decided to read and give analyses of all Dickinsons poetry, he or she would have to

work hard, but would surely enjoy it. She wrote about many different themes, I did not

manage to mention in this essay, but what I have done gave me pleasure.

She notices many details that others miss, celebrates things that all of us can see in a special

way, deals with her inner world and the state of her mind.

I believe that this kind of confrontation takes courage.

In her writing, Dickinson distills sense out of her ordinary life and what people would

think of its ordinary meanings. (Lewicki)

There is no self-pity or lack of strength in her writings, although she writes about pain, loss,

suffering, despair.
6. Bibliography

A Handbook of American Literature for Students of English; Zbigniew Lewicki

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/hope.html

http://www.antiessays.com/free-essays/14848.html

http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/dickinson/section4.rhtml