Emily Dickenson

This is a thoughtful post about Emily Dickenson's personal life, adding depth and understanding to her poetry. You mention difficult themes such as death in a sensitive way, drawing attention to the way such hardships and suffering might have influenced Dickenson's writing. I had not realized yet that she had so many loved ones die within a short period of time -- and you observe correctly that these deaths caused Emily Dickenson to temporarily obsess about death in her writing. I agree with you entirely that losing a loved one is like losing a limb; and that an "obsessive theme of death" is completely understandable. If more people knew this about Emily's personal life, perhaps more people would appreciate her poetry as being able to provide some sort of spiritual guidance during difficult times.

Dickenson was a recluse, and by turning inwards she probed some of the darkest regions of her soul. I especially appreciated your pointing out that Dickenson finds "beauty in chaos," because that is what much of the world's great art does. As an art, poetry uses the medium of words to create beauty out of the perceived chaos of human emotion and human experience. I notice that you struggle somewhat with Dickenson's overt darkness. You say you are a fierce optimist. Would I be correct to say that while you understand why Emily would vent her emotions on the page, that you might not fully understand the morbidity of poems like "Because I Could Not Stop For Death"? Poems like these, which reveal the poet's disillusionment with life, can be difficult to grasp when one is not in grief as well. Do you think that you might return to this, or similar Dickenson poems, if and when you experience great loss as she had?

Work Cited

Dickenson, Emily. "Because I Could Not Stop for Death." Retrieved online: http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/stop.html