Emily Dickinson's Works
analytical Essay
2538 words
Emily Dickinson's Works
There is a life in Emily Dickinson’s poems, readers have found. Although one may not completely understand her as a legend, a writer, or as a part of literature books, she is considered one of America’s greatest poets. While unknown answers may not be revealed about her, secrets may not be told, nor any new discoveries made, evidence from books and articles showing Emily Dickinson’s experiences and hardships exists. Critic Paul J. Ferlazzo describes her writings: “Many students and casual readers of her poetry have enjoyed hearing tales about her which remind them of storybook heroines locked in castles, of beautiful maidens cruelty relegated to a life of drudgery and obscurity, of genius so great that all the world’s suppression cannot deny its flowering.” 1 Many researchers ignore the bases of her writings, her life, and her dreams.
Fascinated by many works examining the life and writings of Emily Dickinson, some may find that Dickinson’s trials at a young age are the basis of many assumptions today. The facts of her childhood and young adult life are few and simple,but the interpretations are many and complex. She was born in Amherst Massachusetts, a small farming town which had a college and a hat factory; she seldom left her home town. Even though she was claimed to be a high-spirited and active young woman, Dickinson began to withdraw from society in the 1850’s; virtually her only contact with her friends came to be made through letters.
Wendy Martin, a critic of Emily Dickinson, discusses Dickinson’s choice of seclusion: “...as a young woman, Dickinson rejected these comforting traditions, [anxiety, helplessness, anger, confusion, desperation, fears, and frustrations] resisted ma...
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Endnotes
1) Ferlazzo, Paul J. Pg. 13
2) Martin, Wendy Pg. 79
3) Ferlazzo, Paul J. Pg. 19
4) Martin, Wendy Pg. 84
5) Keller, Karl Pg. 205
6) Martin, Wendy Pg. 86
7) Ferlazzo, Paul J. Pg. 32
8) Wells, Henry W. Pg. 257-258
9) Pollitt, Josephine E. Pg. 72
10) Ferlazzo, Paul J. Pg. 35
11) Faust, Langdon Lynne Pg. 164
12) Griffith, Clark Pg. 140
13) Cody, John Pg. 212
14) Ferlazzo, Paul J. Pg. 41
15) Higginson, Thomas Wentworth Pg. 444
16) The Readers Companion to American History Pg. 1
17) Cody, John Pg. 160
18) Lindburg- Seyersted, Brita Pg. 57
11) Faust, Langdon Lynne Pg. 164
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how dickinson's poetry transformed human frailty, fear, and anxiety into the highest levels of art.
- Explains that emily dickinson is considered one of america's greatest poets. many scholars ignore the bases of her writings, her life, and her dreams.
- Analyzes how emily dickinson's poetry is defiant when she challenges god or her proudness.
- Analyzes how emily dickinson's poems offer the emotional maturity of a sentimental poet, and only her life can reveal the true nature of death.
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- analytical
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- Emily Dickinson and Her Poetryanalytical essayEmily Dickinson and Her Poetry Emily Dickinson is one of the great visionary poets of nineteenth century America. In her lifetime, she composed more poems than most modern Americans will even read in their lifetimes. Dickinson is still praised today, and she continues to be taught in schools, read for pleasure, and studied for research and criticism. Since she stayed inside her house for most of her life, and many of her poems were not discovered until after her death, Dickinson was uninvolved in the publication process of her poetry.
In this essay, the author
- Opines that emily dickinson is one of the great visionary poets of nineteenth century america. she composed more poems than most modern americans will even read in their lifetimes.
- Argues that the notion of is disputed when it comes to critical literary studies.
- Analyzes how a simple internet search for an emily dickinson biography will yield dozens of web pages with details about the life of this nineteenth century poet.
- Explains that dickinson was an eccentric recluse, so one might interpret the poem based on her isolation, her loneliness. had the reader not known anything about her, the interpretation might be different.
- Analyzes how dickinson's poems contain more than just a window to her mind, and agoraphobia fails to explain many of her more peculiar aspects.
- Opines that readers of dickinson's poems are more concerned with her faults and eccentricities than her method of writing. each poem should be given the chance to speak and have a voice.
- Analyzes how dickinson's poems are written in a very peculiar manner unlike other poems of the era.
- Analyzes how dickinson's manuscripts reflect only the shadow of their inception in typography. shapes and letters pun on and play with each other.
- Opines that dickinson's poems were written sensually in her manuscripts, and any current incarnation of her work is an altered form of the original.
- Argues that a reasonable solution must be found regarding the publication of dickinson's poems.
- Explains that punctuation is just as important as words because it opens up a number of questions—questions about tone, questions about meaning.
- Explains that dashes can alter one's perception of the poem, changing the meaning of words.
- Explains that dickinson's poems deal with death or dying and other grave subjects, but a modern reader may find it difficult to decipher meaning from the poems without help.
- Explains that emily dickinson became the poet we know between 1858 and 1860. the first labor called for was to sweep away the pernicious idea of poetry as embroidery for women.
- Analyzes how dickinson wrote regularly, finding her voice and settling into a particular style of poem, proving that men were not the only ones capable of crafting intelligent, intriguing poetry.
- Analyzes how dickinson's poems were considered historically important, but were amateurish in her day. the atlantic monthly criticized her for not discerning enough to rise above conventional poetics.
- Opines that the importance of a reader's interpretation depends on what facts that reader uses when looking at the poem.
- Cites howe, susan, "some notes on visual intentionality in emily dickinson." rutgers university libraries.
- Describes green, fiona, "plainly on the other side: susan howe’s recovery." contemporary literature.
- Cites ickstadt, heinz, "emily dickinson’s place in literary history; or, the public function of a private poet."
- Cites ma, ming-qian, and howe's "scattering as behavior toward risk" in american literary history.
3199 wordsRead More - Emily Dickinson Biographyanalytical essayEmily Dickinson, regarded as one of America’s greatest poets, is also well known for her unusual life of self imposed social seclusion. Living a life of simplicity and seclusion, she yet wrote poetry of great power; questioning the nature of immortality and death. Her different lifestyle created an aura; often romanticized, and frequently a source of interest and speculation. But ultimately Emily Dickinson is remembered for her unique poetry. Within short, compact phrases she expressed far-reaching ideas; amidst paradox and uncertainty her poetry has an undeniable capacity to move and provoke.
In this essay, the author
- Opines that emily dickinson, one of america's greatest poets, is well known for her unusual life of self-imposed social seclusion.
- Explains that emily dickinson grew up in a prominent and prosperous household in amherst, massachusetts, with her younger sister vinnie and older brother austin. her mother, emily norcross, was not as powerful in her life.
- Explains that dickinson lived in a family environment that was steeped in nineteenth-century politics, economics, and social issues.
- Explains that dickinson withdrew from her father's public world and almost all social life in amherst.
- Explains that dickinson had significant relationships with men who were friends, confidantes, and mentors. biographers have attempted to find in a number of her relationships the source for her love poems and letters, but no biographer has been able to identify definitely the object.
- Analyzes how dickinson redefined the meaning of deprivation because being denied something provided a sharper understanding than would have experienced had she achieved what she wanted.
- Analyzes how contemporary writers had little or no effect on the style of her writing. in her own work she was original and innovative, but she did draw upon her knowledge of the bible, classical myths, and shakespeare for allusions and references.
- Explains that dickinson was regarded as one of america's greatest poets, but when she died at the age of fifty-six after dedicating her life to writing poetry, her nearly 2,000 poems were unknown except to a small number of friends and relatives.
- Analyzes how dickinson's poems were made to appear like traditional nineteenth-century verse by assigning titles, rearranging syntax, normalizing grammar, and regularizing capitalizations.
- Analyzes how dickinson found irony, ambiguity, and paradox lurking in the simplest and commonest experiences. the materials and subject matter of her poetry are quite conventional.
- Analyzes how dickinson breaks poetic conventions by evoking qualifications and questions with images that complicate firm assertions. her conciseness, brevity, and wit are tightly packed.
- Analyzes how dickinson's poetry is radical and original in its rejection of most traditional nineteenth-century themes and techniques.
- Narrates how emily dickinson's sister vinnie was instructed to burn her letters and handed them to a family friend, mabel todd. the first edition of poems was published in 1893.
1670 wordsRead More - Essay on the Poetry and Life of Emily Dickinsonanalytical essayThe Poetry and Life of Emily Dickinson Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830. She was from a small town in Amherst, Massachusetts. One hundred and seventy-one years later people enjoy reading Emilyâs poetry. There is intrigue behind both her poetry and her life.
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes dickinson's poem number 322: the reader experiences the joy that the writer expresses in her desire to dance.
- Analyzes dickinson's poem 302 as another example of his ability to paint a serene picture in the readerâs mind.
- Explains that johnson, thomas h., the complete poems of emily dickinson.
- Explains the greenhaven press literary companion to american authors. readings on emily dickinson.
- Explains that emily elizabeth dickinson was born on december 10, 1830 in amherst, massachusetts. she shunned public attention and refused to have her poetry published.
- Analyzes how dickinson's poetry conveys a joy in knowing that beautiful days and flowers can sometimes feel like they were made for just us.
- Analyzes how dickinson's writing on mysticism connects the reader to god through the connection invoking a sense of hope.
- Analyzes how dickinson describes the greatest "test of love" and self-sacrifice. poem number 571 offers hope to those who might feel there is no hope.
- Analyzes how the controversy surrounding miss dickinson's life sparks interest in the reader who hopes to solve the missing links to the puzzle of her life.
1434 wordsRead More - Emily Dickinson: Life and Literatureanalytical essayThe life led by Emily Dickinson was one secluded from the outside world, but full of color and light within. During her time she was not well known, but as time progressed after her death more and more people took her works into consideration and many of them were published. Dickinson’s life was interesting in its self, but the life her poems held, changed American Literature. Emily Dickinson led a unique life that emotionally attached her to her writing and the people who would read them long after she died.
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how emily dickinson's life was secluded from the outside world, but full of color and light within. the life her poems held changed american literature.
- Explains that emily dickinson was born december 10th, 1830, in her family home on main street in amherst, massachusetts, to her parents edward and emily norcross.
- Explains that dickinson was known for her seclusion in her home. she wrote to her friends during this time of mourning and tears.
- Narrates emily dickinson: her childhood and youth (1830-1855).
- Explains that emily dickinson had many female friends and significant friendships with men, including benjamin newton, henry vaughn emmons, and george gould.
- Opines that emily dickinson's work changed american literature and the people that read her work.
1064 wordsRead More - Emily Dickinson's Living Deathanalytical essay“Emily Dickinson’s Life and Work.” Literature An Introduction to Reading and Writing. Eds. Edgar V. Roberts and Robert Zweig. 5th ed. Boston: Longman, 2012. 756-761. Print.
In this essay, the author
- Explains dickinson's essay, "i felt a funeral in my brain." literature an introduction to reading and writing.
- Explains that emily dickinson was born in 1830 in amherst, massachusetts, to a governing father and an almost non-existent mother.
- Analyzes how dickinson's poem opens with the "feeling" of a funeral in her brain; the mourners are unidentified, contributing to her descent into madness, to the loss of herself.
- Describes dickinson's manuscripts and their meanings in nineteenth-century literature. mitchell, domhnall, smith, martha, and takeda.
1540 wordsRead More - Guthrie, James R. Emily Dickinson's Vision: Illness and Identity in Her Poetry. Gainesville: University of Florida, 1998. Print.
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how emily dickinson's i heard a fly buzz – when i died is an interesting poem in which the poet deals with the subject of death in both optimistic and pessimistic ways.
- Analyzes the use of fly in the poem, i heard a fly buzz – when i died, which represents the hope of the person on her deathbed.
- Analyzes how the fly can be interpreted as a symbol of hope, but this is ironic because it is trivial and unnoticed. the fly is welcomed by the narrator who is about to face death.
- Analyzes how the fly symbolizes the horrifying and gruesome truth and reality of death. a fly feeding on dead flesh is a well-known fact.
- Analyzes how the use of the fly is ironic because it is the opposite of what the people in the room are expecting.
- Analyzes how the use of other symbols and capitalization of those symbols have added to the significance and the mood of the poem.
- Analyzes how the style of the poem is written, with strong yet simple words, creates an image in the readers mind from the beginning until the end.
- Analyzes how dash, instead of period or comma, allows readers to pause for a while and draw an image with the explanations in the phrase.
- Analyzes how the poet's tone, which does not suit with the overall mood of the poem, is significant. the poem presents the subject of death in a doubtful yet optimistic and pessimistic way.
- Analyzes how the use of symbols, irony, oxymoron, imagery, and punctuation supports the central theme of the poem.
- Explains that emily dickinson's vision: illness and identity in her poetry, gainesville, florida, 1998.
- Opines that wilner, eleanor, "the poetics of emily dickinson." jstor. the johns hopkins university press.
2676 wordsRead More - Hollowness in Emily Dickinson’s Poetic Discourseanalytical essayMuch has been said about Emily Dickinson’s mystifying poetry and private life, especially during the years 1860-63. Allegedly it was during these years that the poetess, at the most prolific phase of her career, withdrew from society, began to wear her “characteristic” white dress and suffered a series of psychotic episodes. Dickinson tended to “theatricalize” herself by speaking through a host of personae in her poems and by “fictionalizing” her inner life as a gothic romance (Gilbert 584). Believing that a poem is “the best words in the best order” (to quote S.T. Coleridge) and that all the poems stemming from a single consciousness bring to surface different aspects / manifestations of the same personal mythology, I will firstly disregard biographical details in my interpretation of Dickinson’s poems 378, 341 and 280 and secondly place them in a sort of “continuum” (starting with 378 and ending with 280) to show how they attempt to describe a “plunge” into the Unconscious and a lapse into madness (I refrain from using the term “journey,” for it implies a “telos,” a goal which, whether unattainable or not, is something non-existent in the poems in question). Faced with the problem of articulating and concretizing inner psychological states, Dickinson created a totally new poetic discourse which lacks a transcendental signified and thus can dramatize the three stages of a (narrated) mental collapse: existential despair, withdrawal from the world of the senses and “death” of consciousness.
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes emily dickinson's mystifying poetry and private life during the years 1860-63. she tended to "theatricalize" herself by speaking through personae and by "fictionalizing" her inner life as a gothic romance.
- Analyzes how the speaker's relentless questioning of metaphysical "truths" has led her to a state of complete "faithlessness" and remains trapped in an opaque and indecipherable universe.
- Analyzes how the fragmented and incoherent universe mirrors the speaker's confusion and psychological fragmentation.
- Explains that circumference is a key term in dickinson's private system of symbols and it represents the boundary between personal space and what might be outside.
- Analyzes how dickinson's poem, "beyond the dip of bell," pushes language to the border of meaninglessness.
- Analyzes how poem 341 dramatizes the speaker's mental collapse, which is withdrawal from the world of the senses.
- Analyzes how dickinson uses the pronoun "he" to refer to her speaker's heart, the very part of the body from which (supposedly) lyric poetry originates.
- Analyzes how dickinson renders the heart of her poetic discourse hollow by substituting "she" with "he." the speaker loses her sense of time, as she had lost space in the previous poem.
- Analyzes how the speaker's lack of sentience is ingeniously rendered concrete through both visual and auditory imagery in the lines "a wooden way / regardless grown."
- Analyzes how dickinson uses the word "lead" to violate the reader's sense of time and space.
- Analyzes how dickinson uses extended conceit to concretize an inner state: the death of the conscious mind is rendered in terms of a funeral service.
- Analyzes how the poem's fourth line seems to have a double meaning: “sense” is either the speaker’s faculty of reason, which “breaks through,” i.e. collapses, fails, or her madness.
- Analyzes how the heaviness of lead implies oppression and mental agony as the thoughts, or "mourners," seem to turn against the speaker's consciousness.
- Analyzes how the speaker's final separation from her conscious self and her final "plunge" into her unconscious begins with extravagant auditory images.
- Analyzes how dickinson's "hollow" language can now signify only in terms of what if silences.
- Analyzes how eberwein identifies dickinson's supreme achievement as the communication of inner states of consciousness — the revelation of mental process.
- Analyzes how the poet concentrates her expressive gifts on the sensations of mental extremity themselves, distilling the anguish, the numbness, and the horror.
- Argues that dickinson's anguish, numbness, and horror are rendered concrete through a radical poetic discourse, which defies discourse itself and is doomed to lapse into speechlessness.
- Describes feit diehl, joanne, and suzanne juhasz's feminist critics read emily dickinson.
- Explains gilbert, sandra m., and susan gubar, the madwoman in the attic: the woman writer and the 19th century literary imagination.
- Analyzes homans, margaret, and suzanne juhasz's feminist critics read emily dickinson.
- Describes miller, cristanne, and juhasz's feminist critics read emily dickinson.
3878 wordsRead More - Emily Dickinson 1489 Analysisanalytical essayOne of Emily Dickinson’s greatest skills is taking the familiar and making it unfamiliar. In this sense, she reshapes how her readers view her subjects and the meaning that they have in the world. She also has the ability to assign a word to abstractness, making her poems seemingly vague and unclear on the surface. Her poems are so carefully crafted that each word can be dissected and the reader is able to uncover intense meanings and images. Often focusing on more gothic themes, Dickinson shows an appreciation for the natural world in a handful of poems. Although Dickinson’s poem #1489 seems disoriented, it produces a parallelism of experience between the speaker and the audience that encompasses the abstractness and unexpectedness of an event.
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes emily dickinson's ability to reshape how her readers view her subjects and the meaning that they have in the world.
- Analyzes how dickinson's poem is short and broken up through her use of dashes, which strategically separate the different aspects of the poem.
- Analyzes how dickinson develops curiosity and awe about the subject of the poem by using words that are contradicting.
- Analyzes how dickinson's use of "resonance" and "emerald" have a strong impact on how the reader understands the speaker’s perception of the bird.
- Analyzes how dickinson uses a more scholarly word to describe the color red, "cochineal," to represent the bird's body.
- Analyzes how dickinson's use of the word "blossom" parallels to "cochineal" as both are shades of pink. she personifies the bush through the verb "adjusts" and "tumbled."
- Analyzes how the speaker transitions from using specific words to casual words such as "probably" and "easy" to show the reader a sense of certainty in her thoughts.
- Analyzes how dickinson's poem demonstrates poetry’s ability to mark absence. the speaker is not describing a still image of the hummingbird.
1304 wordsRead More - Emily Dickinson's Message to Readersexplanatory essayEmily Dickinson was a nineteenth – century American writer whose poems changed the way people perceive poetry. She is one of the most mysterious writers of all times. Her personal life and her works are still the cause of debates and are not fully solved. Her poems are dedicated to life and finding the real truth. Her two poems: “Tell all the truth but tell it slant” and “Much madness is divinest sense” represent Dickinson’s quest to reveal the mystery and truth of life. In order to fully understand Dickinson’s poems, one must learn about her personal and historical event such as “The Second Great Awakening” and “The United States women’s suffrage movement “surrounding her life that contributed to the creation of her works.
In this essay, the author
- Explains that emily dickinson's personal life happenings had a great impact on her poetic development, but the other events had an impact as well.
- Explains that "much madness is divinest sense." poetry for students. ed. david m. galens.
- Opines that "tell all the truth but tell it slant." poetry for students. ed. sara constantakis.
- Explains that emily dickinson was a nineteenth-century american writer whose poems changed the way people perceive poetry.
- Explains that emily dickinson's poems were her escape from society and her quest for truth.
1269 wordsRead More - Emily Dickinson: An Everlasting American Poetanalytical essay“Behavior is what a man does, not what he thinks, feels, or believes.” was one of Emily Dickinson’s most famous quotes, showing much of her swaying from Romanticism to a more Realistic view, and changing the standards of writing along with it. Between 1858 and 1864 Emily Dickinson wrote over forty hand bound volumes of nearly 1800 poems, yet during her lifetime only a few were published. Perhaps this is why today we see Dickinson as a highly influential writer, unlike those during her time who did not see the potential. Emily Dickinson wrote most of her works towards the end of the romanticism era, but considered more of a realist, ahead of her time and one to shape the new movement. The main characteristic of Romanticism that Dickinson portrays in her writing emphases of the importance of nature to the Romantics, but she is known as a Realist because of her concern and fascination with death, and the harsh realities of life. Emily Dickinson’s upbringing and early education, along with living in reclusion with death all around her, greatly influenced on of the greatest female poets of all time.
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how emily dickinson swayed from romanticism to a more realistic view, changing the standards of writing along with it.
- Explains that emily dickinson's life was normal, except for a few key parts. her paternal grandfather, samuel, was the founder of amherst college.
- Analyzes martha hale shackford's "the poetry of emily dickinson" as a critical essay on her poems. she uses compression, epigrammatic ambush, and chaotic rhymes.
- Analyzes dickinson's use of chaotic rhymes, as well as epigrammatic ambushes, or short phrases put together to make a work.
- Analyzes how emily dickinson's writings reflect her emotional upbringing and depression. she taught poets and writers how to better comprehend works.
- Opines that emily dickinson is considered one of the greatest american female writers of all time.
- Explains that emily dickinson's poetry was published by the poetry foundation.
- Cites shackford, martha hale, "the poetry of emily dickinson" in nineteenth-century literature criticism.
- Explains that significant to american literature - emily dickinson 101. google sites, n.d.
970 wordsRead More