I think Dickinson's poem is a work that is quite special because of the way she has taken the topic of death and she has made death into human form that is not at all like we would imagine him to be.
It is the sensibility that poets and others writers have, how they come to universal issues and human topics, that make a piece of writing literature. Some may argue that literature is only the classics, however, even popular books (e.g., the Harry Potter series or Twilight series) can be categorized as literature if they fulfill the purpose of the journey. Literature is literature if it speaks to people in a universal way and a lot of popular works can do that.
Within literature there are definite styles and movements. Henry David Thoreau was a writer who focused on what it meant to be human by comparing the human life with nature. In Walden, Thoreau stresses the importance of going back to nature. As a writer, he was someone who believed that the meaning of life could not be found in the city and within institutions and organized religion. Thoreau believed that the only way to get to the core of what it meant to be human was to get back to nature. His works are a special type of literature, so different from the works of Faulkner and Dickinson, yet they are so universal as well. This is the point, we can take all different types and styles of literature and even though they may come to a topic in completely different ways, as long as the topic is universal, we are moved. This is the task of literature. It is not just, as mentioned, to put pretty words into a structured syntax, but it is being able to create syntax as well as creating a world in which we, humans, are ready and willing to become a part of. This is the job of the writer of literature....
Like Dickinson's character of Death who takes us on board his carriage, the writer takes the reader on the journey, stopping at all the sites we either want or don't want to see because they all have a purpose for us.
Shakespeare is considered one of the greatest dramatists of all time. He created so many works that address so many different human issues: desire, greed, love, death, violence, etc. In his play, Hamlet, Shakespeare addresses the mysteries of death, which is most notably seen in his famous "To be or not to be…" speech. It is in this speech that Hamlet contemplates life and death. Hamlet is more concerned, more obsessed, with death, however, than he is with life. After his father is murdered, Hamlet is forced to deal with the question of death and he does so via all different ways. He considers death from a more spiritual perspective as well as a physical perspective. Hamlet sees his father's ghost, which is an embodiment of the spiritual remains of his father. Hamlet then comes across Yorick's skull and we are able to see death from a purely physical aspect. The beauty of Shakespeare's play is that he is able to come to questions that we all have and help us make sense of our own feelings related to death -- as well as to life.
Faulkner, Dickinson and Shakespeare are all very different writers, but they all share the same trait: the ability to make their writing resonate to the universal within all of us. While this paper has obviously chosen works that have the theme of death in them, but that is because death is an important part of life. In looking at death, in pondering death, we can get an idea about what it means to be alive. The greatest writers appeal to our universal sensibilities and this is what makes literature.
