Emily Dickinson

1
Emily Dickinson

• American Literature
• Cecilia H.C. Liu
• 12/27/2004

2
Outline

• 448 Interpretation
• 449 Interpretation
• 465 Interpretation
• 501 Interpretation
• 712 Interpretation

• 754 Interpretation
• 986 Interpretation
• 1078 Interpretation
• 1624 Interpretation
• References

3
448

• This is a piece of poem that puts emphasis upon
  the poets construction of a poem, which the word
  distillation in the second line of the first
  stanza came from the sense of distillation of
  alcohol and perfume.
• This particular stanza suggests that the meanings
  and images the poet puts on the page would fill
  up the room, as immense as Attar. The first
  line of the second stanza, the phrase, familiar
  species, suggest the sense of ordinary meanings
  in the poem, the surface meaning of the poem.
• Finally, Dickinson portrays in the last stanza in
  the second line with the word Robbing, which
  suggests that when we read poets poetry, we
  would be stealing something from him. However,
  Dickinson suggests in the following lines that
  designates that this act would not bring harm to
  the poet at all rather, it would become a
  fortune through time for the poet, which
  designates the sense of the fame and poems of the
  poet living on.

4
449

• A poem about death
• The pattern of the poem follows many of
  Dickinson's typical formal patterns--the ABCB
  rhyme scheme, the rhythmic use of the dash to
  interrupt the flow--but has a more regular meter,
  so that the first and third lines in each stanza
  are iambic tetrameter, while the second and
  fourth lines are iambic trimeter, creating a
  four-three-four-three stress pattern in each
  stanza.

5
449

• This piece of poem describes two dead persons
  talking to each other in the tomb, which the
  speaker of the poem, the persona, takes truth
  and beauty as the ideal image. In the first
  line of the second stanza, Dickinson used the
  word failed as the synonym of die.
• Therefore, she suggests that the speaker has died
  for beauty and truth, but not because he has
  failed his life all along. The first two stanza
  of the poem reflects the last line of John Keats
  Ode on a Grecian Urn, Truth is beauty. Beauty is
  truth.
• The last stanza of the poem suggests that the
  inscriptions on the tomb have become invisible
  due to the weather, and that names could refer
  to different persons. In addition, dashes in this
  poem represent a sort of different bridge to
  different ideas, which serves the function of a
  conjunction or transition. What is more, what is
  interesting to note in this poem is that it was
  Truth who asks questions, which had been quoted
  by Beauty.

6
465

• This piece of poem focuses on the idea of ecstasy
  or vision
• This poem captures the last thoughts and
  sensations of a person on her death bed.
  Surrounded by mourners who are bracing themselves
  for her death, the narrator's focus as she dies
  is on the most mundane of living creatures a
  buzzing fly. The final ebb of consciousness is
  depicted as a loss of light and sight "And then
  the Windows failed--and then / I could not see to
  see--."

7
501

• The poem itself is about ecstasy or vision
• The opening pronouncement of the first line is
  made all the more emphatic and unequivocal by the
  period that closes it off , while dashes are
  rarely used by Dickinson in this poem.
• In addition, music is the metaphor that
  clarifies and verifies the reality of an
  invisible species that stands beyond

8
501

• narcoticsorthodox enthusiasm
• The passages of the poem wittily sum up the
  history of Christian belief in afterlife, and
  talks about the present age's shallow struggling
  for faith as well as introducing the inability of
  current frenzies of orthodox enthusiasm to
  satisfy the urge and irrepressible need for
  authentic faith.
• Dickinson addresses the question not only of
  belief versus disbelief, but also of authentic
  versus inauthentic belief in her time.

9
712

• This piece of poem involves with many images that
  have been personified.
• First, the poem describes how the speaker of the
  poem is having a date with Death, and that
  Immortality in the poem is described as the
  maiden or courtship that goes along with the
  speaker to protect or take care of her.
• Dickinson used the method of flashback method of
  the poem to suggest what had happened before the
  speakers death, in the third to fifth stanza of
  the poem. Furthermore, in the fourth stanza,
  Dickinson used the word He, which this word here
  is as well personified, as time, suggesting
  that the time of the speaker is up, and the
  speaker of the poem is actually chilled by the
  persona.

10
712

• What is also interesting in the poem is that,
  Death in the poem is represented as a patriarchal
  man in the society, for he gets to make the
  decision, and provide everything for the family,
  the possibility of which the speaker does not run
  away or could have run away from Death when he
  attempts to seize her day on earth.
• Previously repressed and forbidden erotic drives
  were contained and made permissible by a
  displacement to a safely unobtainable love
  object. The aggression and hostility stimulated
  by Dickinsons frustrated needs of love has also
  found their way into the poems. Some of this
  hostility expressed in her obsession with death
  and in her agoraphobia had made her a prisoner in
  her father's house for the last fifteen years of
  her life.

11
754

• This is basically a poem about entrapment
• The themes of the poem evolve around the fusion
  of sexuality and destructiveness as well as the
  poet's acceptance of masculine components of her
  personality.
• The term, My life had stood" suggest that the
  speakers vitality had laid unused, with her
  potential lay dormant.
• The term, "a Loaded Gun" suggested the speaker
  had all within her of what she needed for
  effective action and expression, but this same
  term could also suggest something sexual --
  phallic -- and destructive, a dormant, repressed
  potential for aggression.

12
754

•  The term, "In Corners, suggest that these
  abilities were stagnating, or hidden away.
• In addition, the poem also imply in "Till a day/
  The Owner passed that the owner has an
  unfamiliar aspect of her own divided self that
  suddenly came to her awareness, which had become
  accessible to consciousness.)
• In the poem, the speaker suggest that her former
  incomplete personality was overwhelmed, while the
  new sectors of her personality is masculinized.
  When Emily Dickinson has emerged herself into a
  poet, it could have only been her identification
  with her active father and her brother that came
  to the fore, and not with her passive and
  inadequate mother.

13
754

• "And now We roam in Sovereign Woods" In
  addition, Dickinson embarks on the idea of what
  she fancies as characteristically masculine
  adventures. The active, aggressive, aspect of my
  masculinized personality is now in full command
  of its emotional energy.
• The term, "The Sovereign Woods" may suggest the
  domain of poetry , or of love.
• "And now we Hunt the Doe" It seems appropriate
  for the male to hunt the female deer, the Doe.
  The object of aggression is conspicuously female.
  But the doe is also an erotic object. The doe may
  represent poetry, beauty. The doe is swift,
  delicate elusive, wild, hypersensitive.)

14
754

• In this poem, the gun and mountain do suggest
  sexual symbols, since the discharging gun could
  represent as a masculine orgasm the echo from
  the mountainsbreast likea responsive orgasm
  from the female symbol.
• In this poem, the yellow eye is the explosive
  flash at the end of the barrel of the gun and the
  thumb is the bullet, and this suggest that
  anything which impedes the free creative
  expression of my erotic and aggressive impulses
  must brave the threat of the speakers
  destructive wrath.
• Finally, the last few lines of the poem were the
  most powerful one, suggesting that the speaker
  does have her own will and power to control, and
  not have her physical life extinguished.

15
986

• It is a poem that evolves the theme of nature,
  written in 1865.
• A year later, it was published anonymously under
  the title of The Snake in a journal called the
  Springfield Republican. The natural world is
  portrayed vividly throughout Dickinsons work,
  and this poem closely examines one of natures
  most infamous creaturesthe snake.

16
986

• In addition, this piece of poem portrays a sense
  of riddle within, which begins with a description
  of the shock of encountering a snake, while the
  poem goes on to illustrate how snakes can be
  deceptivesimilar to the idea portrayed in the
  garden of Eden.

17
1078

• This piece of poem, like 712, is also a poem
  about death
• industries suggests a period of time
• Contrast?bustle v. solemn
• The speaker suggests that we have to let go sad
  feelings and not look backThe sweeping up the
  heart and putting love away we shall not want
  to use again until eternity

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1624

• Like the previous, this poem is also a
  description of about death, which describes the
  cold, unfeeling attitude of nature.
• The choice of diction in the first stanza is
  especially effective in portraying the unfeeling
  randomness of nature. For instance, happy
  suggest a sense of innocence and life in the
  flower.

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1624

• In addition, behead suggests violence and
  brutality
• Dickinson demonstrates the randomness of nature
  and reminds the reader that nature has no real
  malevolence.
• Dickinsons choice of diction in the second
  stanza also portrays the indifference of nature
  and God.
• The sun proceeds unmoved portrays the sense to
  show that nature has no concern for life or
  anything else.
• The phrase, an approving God, portrays the
  sense of something ironic, that even God Himself
  is indifferent to the suffering in nature.

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Reference

• Armand, Barton Levi St. Emily Dickinson and Her
  Culture The Souls Society. New York Cambridge
  UP, 1984. 39-77.
• Frisch, Karen. Childhood Diseases in the
  Victorian Age. http//www.ancestry.com/learn/libr
  ary/article.aspx?article5552
• American Trascendentalism An On-line Travel
  Guide. http//www.shepherd.edu/transweb/amherst.h
  tm
• Emily Dickinson. http//womenshistory.about.com/
  gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?sitehttp3A2F2Fwww.finda
  grave.com2Fpictures2F282.html

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References 2

• Reuben, Paul. PAL Perspectives in American
  LiteratureA Research and Reference Guide - An
  Ongoing Project http//www.csustan.edu/english/reu
  ben/pal/chap4/dickinson.htmlstudy
• Dickinson, Emily.http//mchip00.med.nyu.edu/lit-
  med/lit-med-db/webdocs/webauthors/dickinson73-au-.
  html
• Emily Dickinson. http//jade.ccccd.edu/Andrade/W
  orldLitII2333/LectureEmilyDickinson.html
• A Narrow Fellow in the Grass Introduction.
  http//www.enotes.com/narrow-fellow/