Emily Dickinson\'s Poem, \"Wild Nights!\"

Emily Dickinson's poem, "Wild Nights!" Wild night!," is famous for being very difficult to interpret. It is a short poem. It involves images centered around the natural imagery, the sea, juxtaposed with romantic themes, such as the "heart." This leads many to believe that the sea is metaphor for something, though the nature of that something is still in dispute.

Because of her idiosyncracies, Dickinson's work cannot be interpreted according to conventional literary principles. It must be interpreted according to common themes in her body of work. Thesis: Wild Nights is one of Dickinson's many "Undiscovered Continent" poems, which deal with the landscape of the mind. Its images of water symbolize the seductive unconsciousness, which is usually accessed through dreams, the excitement of which inspires the title, "Wild Nights."

Background

Emily Dickinson

Professional life

Emily Dickinson was a reclusive female American poet working in the mid-19th Century. Dickinson was a hugely talented and prolific poet, but the magnitude of her talent was largely unrecognized during her life. She wrote a total of 1800 poems, yet only a dozen of her nearly eighteen hundred poems were published during her lifetime. The poems that were published during her lifetime were usually altered significantly by her publishers to fit the conventional poetic rules of the time.

As a result of her distance from the literary scene, Dickinson's poems are unique for the era in which she wrote. In contrast to the lengthy, elegant phrasing of the Romantics, Dickinson used short lines full of powerful, often dark imagery. Many of her poems deal with themes of death and immortality, two recurring topics in letters to her friends.

Personal life

Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a notable, educated family of attorneys. (Wider). This allowed her, a female, be educated at Amherst Academy as a youth and later at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary. (Wider). Dickinson later returned to her family's house in Amherst, where she lived a quiet, even reclusive life while writing poetry. (Wider).

Though she left the Seminary after a single year, Dickinson may have internalized some aspects of the religious training which she received at her time in a seminary. She certainly lived the rest of her life in Amherst like a nun, rarely even leaving her room in old age. (Wider).

Dickinson's Work

The Phases of Dickinson's Career

The first phase of Dickinson's career, everything until 1861, is considered the conventional phase. They are light-hearted and sentimental in nature, dealing with issues such as romance and friendship. They are also marked by conventional lyrics and structures. (Wider).

The years 1861 -- 1865 marked the most creative and productive phase of Dickinson's career. She wrote at least 767 poems during these years. (Wider). They are marked by more mature, darker subject matter, particularly death and resurrection.

The years after 1866 mark the final and most contemplative phase of Dickinson's career. It is estimated that two-thirds of the entire body of her poetry was written before this year. There is stronger focus on religion during this period. (Wider).

Analysis

Interpreting Dickinson

Dickinson's distance from the artistic scene of her time, and the resulting idiosyncracies in her work, suggest that it is unwise to evaluate her with the same methods with which we evaluate her contemporaries. Dickinson's work cannot be viewed through the lens of literary theory and convention, no matter how avant-garde. This is because Dickinson was not trying to be avant-garde or innovative, she was completely oblivious to the artistic scene and its trends, thus she could neither emulate those trends or rebel against them.

Recurring Themes in Dickinson's Work

Although Dickinson's work is highly diverse and idiosyncratic, there are a handful of themes that recur throughout her career. Dickinson's poems reflect a fascination with the morbid, especially illness and death. (Wider). Another theme, which may be connected with morbidity, is Dickinson's preoccupation with the teachings of Jesus Christ. (Wider).

Dickinson left a large number of poems addressed to Dickinson's "lover for all eternity," who is often referred to as Master. (Jones, p. 49). These confessional poems are often "searing in their self-inquiry" and "harrowing to the reader" and typically take their metaphors from texts and paintings of Dickinson's day. Some scholars posit that the "Master" is an unattainable composite figure, "human, with specific characteristics, but godlike." (Jones, p. 49).

Recent scholars have posited that Dickinson saw the mind and spirit as tangible, places and that for much of her life she lived within them. (Juhasz, p. 86-87). Often, this intensely private place is referred to as the "undiscovered continent," embellished with images of nature. (Juhasz, p. 89).

Classifying "Wild nights!" Wild nights!"

"Wild Nights! Wild Nights" must be interpreted with the aid of recurring themes in Dickinson's work. The dominant interpretation of Wild Nights is that it is a sexually-themed poem about lust and desire directed at the recurring "Master," Dickinson's "lover for all eternity." Advocates of this interpretation claim that the line "Might I but moor/Tonight -- in Thee" is an indication of her sexual desire. (10-11; Joly, 2). They also point to the word "luxury," which represents passionate indulgence. (Joly, 2).

However, the sexual interpretation suffers from a glaring flaw. It only accounts for male sexual desire, that of the phallic rowboat dwelling in the sea for the night. It is hard to imagine Dickinson, a female, conceiving of sex from a phallic perspective.

Rather, "Wild Nights! Wild Nights" can be best described as one of Dickinson's "Undiscovered Continent" poems, which deal with the inner world of the mind. The images of water are meant to symbolize the vast, seductive, and often frightening subconscious.

The subconscious is usually accessed during the Rapid Eye Movement phase of sleep, during dreams. As we usually sleep and dream at night, the reference to "Wild Nights" and "To-Night" is made clear. The title "Wild Nights! Wild Nights!" evokes the excitement of an exhilarating dream. Perhaps it was a type of dream that Dickinson had only once but wished to have again.