Poetry Analysis

“ Emily Dickinson’s Poems Characteristic “

Arranged By :

Arvian

Nurasmah Dewi

Nurrahmawati

Rio Ardiansyah

ENGLISH DEPARTEMENT

NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

2018
 Emily Dickinson’s Poems Characteristic

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) was an American poet.
Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts. Although part of a prominent family with strong
ties to its community, Dickinson lived much of her life in reclusive isolation. After studying at
the Amherst Academy for seven years in her youth, she briefly attended the Mount Holyoke
Female Seminary before returning to her family's house in Amherst. Considered an eccentric by
locals, she developed a noted penchant for white clothing and became known for her reluctance
to greet guests or, later in life, to even leave her bedroom. Dickinson never married, and most
friendships between her and others depended entirely upon correspondence. Dickinson was a
recluse for the later years of her life.
While Dickinson was a prolific private poet, fewer than a dozen of her nearly 1,800
poems has written during her lifetime. The work that was published during her lifetime was
usually altered significantly by the publishers to fit the conventional poetic rules of the time.
Dickinson's poems are unique for the era in which she wrote; they contain short lines, typically
lack titles, and often use slant rhyme as well as unconventional capitalization and punctuation.
Many of her poems deal with themes of death and immortality.
Based on the facts above, we know about the characteristic of her poems. It says, many of
Dickinson’s poems deal with death and immortality. So, In this occasion, we will analyze her
poems to prove the truth of that facts. We have choosen three poems of her. Those are : I Felt A
Funeral In My Brain , I’m Nobody! Who Are You?, and Because I could Not Stop For Death.
Let’s start with the first poem of Emily Dickinson.

1. I Felt A Funeral In My Brain

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,

And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading – treading – till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through –

And when they all were seated,

A Service, like a Drum –
Kept beating – beating – till I thought
My Mind was going numb –

And then I heard them lift a Box

And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space – began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell,

And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race
Wrecked, solitary, here –

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,

And I dropped down, and down –
 And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing – then –

"I felt a funeral in my brain" traces the speaker's descent into madness. It is a terrifying
poem for both the speaker and the reader. The speaker experiences the loss of self in the chaos of
the unconscious, and the reader experiences the speaker's descending madness and the horror
most of us feel about going crazy.
Dickinson uses the metaphor of a funeral to represent the speaker's sense that a part of
her is dying, that is, her reason is being overwhelmed by the irrationality of the unconscious. A
funeral is an appropriate image for this ordeal. The most obvious connotation with a funeral is
death. Also a funeral is a formal event, whose rules and procedures suggest control and order.
The control and order implicit in a funeral contrast ironically with the lack of control and the loss
of rationality that threaten the speaker. In addition, a funeral marks the passage from one state to
another (life to death), a parallel to the speaker's passing from one stage to another (sanity to
insanity). However, the poet is not observing the funeral but is feeling it. She is both observer of
the funeral and participant, indicating that the Self is divided. By the end of the poem, the Self
will have shattered into pieces or chaos.
The mourners are a metaphor to express her pain. Their treading (note the repetition of
the word, which gives emphasis and suggests the action) indicates a pressure that is pushing her
down. The speaker has a momentary impression that reason ("sense") is escaping or being lost.
The pressure of the treading is reasserted with the repetition, "beating, beating." This time her
mind, the source of reasoning, goes "numb," a further deterioration in her condition.
You can trace the process of the speaker's loss of rationality in stanzas three and four.
The last two lines of stanza four assess her condition; she sees herself as "wrecked, solitary." Her
descent into irrationality separates her from other human beings, making her a member of "some
strange race." Her alienation and inability to communicate are indicated by her being enveloped
by silence.
In the last stanza, the one we have added here, Dicksinson uses the metaphor of standing
on a plank or board over a precipice, to describe the speaker's descent into irrationality. In other
words, her hold on rationality was insecure, just as standing on a plan would feel insecure. She
falls past "worlds," which may stand for her past; in any case, she is losing her connections to
reality. Her descent is described as "plunges," suggesting the speed and force of her fall into
psychological chaos ("got through knowing"). The last word of the poem, "then--," does not
finish or end her experience but leaves opens the door for the nightmare-horror of madness.

2. I’m Nobody! Who Are You?

I'm nobody! Who are you?

Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us—don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know

How dreary to be somebody!

How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
 The first line of the poem "I'm Nobody! Who are you?" is a very powerful statement. She
is saying that she is just like everybody else and the exclamation point indicates that she is very
proud of that. This first statement also indicates that she knows and likes who she is. She then
goes on to ask if you know who you are-how do you define yourself? Do you think that your
poems will be better if they were published?. The real poet doesn't need to have their work
published or have fans, because once you start writing for other people you stop writing for
yourself and you lose what once made your work special-you.
Line two She goes on to ask "Are you-Nobody-too?" She wants to know if you are like
her-a poet, who writes for the love of it and not for the fame. The dashes in this poem serve to
interrupt the flow of the poem, so that you will have to slow down and really take in what it is
that she is trying to say.
In line three, it becomes apparent that she has determined that the person she is talking to
is like her and she exclaims "then there's a pair of us!"
Line four She then goes on to warn her companion: "Don't tell! They'd advertise-you
know!" If they told then that would mean that they want recognition and in fact don't want to be
Nobodies.

3. Because I could Not Stop For Death.

Because I could not stop for Death –

He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality.

We slowly drove – He knew no haste

And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility –

We passed the School, where Children strove

At Recess – in the Ring –
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain –
We passed the Setting Sun –

Or rather – He passed us –
The Dews drew quivering and chill –
For only Gossamer, my Gown –
My Tippet – only Tulle –

We paused before a House that seemed

A Swelling of the Ground –
The Roof was scarcely visible –
The Cornice – in the Ground –

Since then – 'tis Centuries – and yet

Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses' Heads

Dickinson’s poems deal with death again, and it is never quite the same in any poem. In
“Because I could not stop for Death—,” we see death personified. She is no frightening, or even
intimidating, reaper, but rather a courteous and gentle guide, leading her to eternity. The speaker
feels no fear when Death picks her up in his carriage, she just sees it as an act of kindness, as she
was too busy to find time for him. It is this kindness, this individual attention to her—it is
emphasized in the first stanza that the carriage holds just the two of them, doubly so because of
the internal rhyme in “held” and “ourselves”—that leads the speaker to so easily give up on her
life and what it contained. This is explicitly stated, as it is “For His Civility” that she puts away
her “labor” and her “leisure,” which is Dickinson using metonymy to represent another
alliterative word—her life.
Indeed, the next stanza shows the life is not so great, as this quiet, slow carriage ride is
contrasted with what she sees as they go. A school scene of children playing, which could be
emotional, is instead only an example of the difficulty of life—although the children are playing
“At Recess,” the verb she uses is “strove,” emphasizing the labors of existence. The use of
anaphora with “We passed” also emphasizes the tiring repetitiveness of mundane routine.
The next stanza moves to present a more conventional vision of death—things become
cold and more sinister, the speaker’s dress is not thick enough to warm or protect her. Yet it
quickly becomes clear that though this part of death—the coldness, and the next stanza’s image
of the grave as home—may not be ideal, it is worth it, for it leads to the final stanza, which ends
with immortality. Additionally, the use of alliteration in this stanza that emphasizes the material
trappings—“gossamer” “gown” and “tippet” “tulle”—makes the stanza as a whole less sinister.

According to our analysis about those poems, the characteristic of Emily Dickinson’s
poems are truly deal with death and immortality. There were a lot of words in Dickinson’s
poems, reflected about deaths and immortality. Dickinson wrote in a unique way. Her poems
differed from other poetry during the period she lived in. Her poetry had an unusual use of
dashes, capitalization, punctuation, and slant rhymes. Dickinson has used capitalization to place
emphasis on a certain word to bring out her emotions and thoughts. Many have also noticed that
her poems usually lack a title. So, our conclusion is Emily Dickinson’s poems characteristic are
deal with death and immortality.
 Refferences

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/funeral.html
https://en.wikipedia.org
http://oomasril21.blogspot.co.id/2014/12/analisis-puisi-emily-dickinson.html
https://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides2/nobody.html
http://www.gradesaver.com/emily-dickinsons-collected-poems/study-guide/summary-im-nobody-
who-are-you
https://www.poets.org