Hollowness in Emily Dickinson’s Poetic Discourse
analytical Essay
3878 words
Hollowness in Emily Dickinson’s Poetic Discourse
Much 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 poem 378 the reader is introduced to the mental world of a speaker whose relentless questioning of metaphysical “truths” has led her to a state of complete “faithlessness”: l...
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...son’s Poetry: Stairway of Surprise. New York: Holt, 1960.
Eberwein, Jane Donahue. Dickinson: Strategies of Limitation. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1985.
Feit Diehl, Joanne. “’Ransom in a Voice’: Language as Defense in Dickinson’s Poetry.” Feminist Critics Read Emily Dickinson. Ed. Suzanne Juhasz. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1983. 156-75.
Gilbert, Sandra M., and Susan Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the 19th Century Literary Imagination. New Haven: Yale UP, 1979.
Homans, Margaret. “’Oh, Vision of Language’: Dickinson’s Poems of Love and Death.” Feminist Critics Read Emily Dickinson. Ed. Suzanne Juhasz. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1983. 114-33.
Miller, Cristanne. “How ‘Low Feet’ Stagger: Disruptions of Language in Dickinson’s Poetry.” Feminist Critics Read Emily Dickinson. Ed. Suzanne Juhasz. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1983. 134-55.
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.
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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's Worksanalytical essayEmily 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.
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.
2538 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 - Emily Dickinsonopinionated essay“Emily Dickinson’s Poetry.” American Studies at the University of Virginia. 2009. Web. 20 January 2014.
In this essay, the author
- Opines that emily dickinson’s poetry was published in american studies at the university of virginia.
- Explains that emily dickinson was a quiet, reclusive woman of the 1800's. her work, discovered after her death, grew in popularity and continues to sell today.
- Cites juhasz, suzanne, "dickinson, emily [elizabeth]," continuum encyclopedia of american literature, pp 269-272.
- Opines that eberwein, jane donahue, and crumbley, paul, wrote "emily dickinson's life." modern american poetry.
1079 wordsRead More - Emily Dickinson's Message to Readersexplanatory essayEmily Dickinson’s Message to Readers Emily 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.
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'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 - The Poet's Tool - The Words of Emily Dickinsonanalytical essayRupp, Richard H., ed. Critics on Emily Dickinson: Readings in Literary Criticism. Coral Gables: U of Miami P, 1972.
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how critics agree that emily dickinson's love affair with words fed her desire to master their use whether individually or combined in phrases.
- Analyzes how donald thackrey applies this phrase to emily dickinson's fascination with the individual word. the determination shown in the masterly quest to discover the right word defines what makes her poetry distinct from all other poetry.
- Analyzes how the word "possibility" illustrates dickinson's personal awareness of the range of ideas, feelings, and images to be found in the combination of words into phrases.
- Analyzes how emily dickinson wrote about the choice and use of specific words in one poem.
- Analyzes how the poem enlightens readers as to dickinson's careful search for words and suggests "the relationship between rational labor and inspiration" both of which pervade her poetry.
- Analyzes how cristanne miller uses the fullness of word meaning to interpret "how many times these low feet staggered -- "
- Analyzes how the idea of flaming poetic feet in line one helps explain the "soldered mouth" of the second line.
- Analyzes how dickinson's verbal-mindedness is revealed through her manuscripts.
- Analyzes johnson's use of "blazing in gold," where the poem describes a sunset, which in one version stoops as low as 'the kitchen window', in another as
- Explains that dickinson's "safe in their alabaster chambers" has been preserved in two very distinct versions showing differing outlooks.
- Analyzes dickinson's skill at subtly depicting the inconsistencies of human virtue.
- Analyzes how ferlazzo interprets the nature references as dickinson's reference to the "endless cycle of renewal"
- Explains that the first stanza is altered only slightly while the second is totally changed.
- Analyzes how dickinson bypasses religion and nature's mindless energy to suggest the actual grandeur of death in the second stanza of the poem.
- Analyzes how the poem moves from the linear, closed images of the tomb into circular, expanding ones of crescents, scoops and arcs.
- Analyzes how dickinson reveals the insignificance of the waiting meek followers and the childishness of nature's babbling. charles r. anderson suggests that 'disc of snow' refers to the milky way.
- Analyzes how death's leveling power is depicted as the insignificant dropping of a dot on snow. there is little religious consolation and no acknowledgment of personal immortality.
- Explains that dickinson could not decide which poem she preferred and as a result preserved both versions.
- Analyzes how emily dickinson strove to attain the standard of a master craftsman in her poetry.
- Analyzes how dickinson attempts to build up the possibilities of personal choice and control in her poems. her ideal seems to be a kind of balance.
- Analyzes how dickinson believed man was the master, the poet standing toward his poem much as god did toward his created world.
- Explains that emily dickinson's ultimate goal in writing was to create poetry that "breathed" according to her early correspondence with professor higgin
- Cites ehomas h. johnson's the complete poems of emily dickinson.
- States that sherwood, william r., thackrey, donald e. and weisbuch, robert. emily dickinson's approach to poetry.
2293 wordsRead More - Emily Dickinson Poetry Analysis Essayanalytical essayEmily Dickinson in her poem anthology had many, varied attitudes towards many questions about both life and death. She expressed these in a great variety of tones throughout each of her poems and the speaker in these individual poems is often hard for the reader to identify. In many of her poems, she preferred to conceal the specific causes and nature of her deepest feelings, especially experiences of suffering, and her subjects flow so much into one another in language and conception that it is often difficult to tell if she is writing about people or God, nature or society, spirit or art. Dickinson was a very diverse poet, constantly having hidden meanings and different poetic schemes in her poems, she was all over the place. In many
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how emily dickinson's poem anthology had many, varied attitudes towards both life and death. she concealed the specific causes and nature of her deepest feelings, especially experiences of suffering.
- Analyzes how dickinson's poem, "if i can stop one heart from breaking," expresses her desire to stop a person from having their heart broken.
- Analyzes how dickinson's poem begins with a paradox in the first line, "i'm nobody." she claims that one exists and has an independent identity, even if it is defined by an absence of social identity.
- Analyzes how dickinson emphasizes that a person's hope endures, even under difficult circumstances, as seen by the use of her metaphor.
1362 wordsRead More - Emily Dickinsonanalytical essayA recurring theme in Emily Dickinson’s poetry was death. Many years of Emily Dickinson’s adult years consisted of man...
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how emily dickinson's poem "not knowing when the dawn will come" illustrates themes of death, hope, and loss which are still relevant today.
- Explains that emily elizabeth dickinson was born on december 10, 1830 on her family's estate in amherst, massachusetts.
- Analyzes how emily dickinson's adult years consisted of many of her family and close friends becoming ill and then dying.
- Analyzes how emily dickinson became reclusive in her later/final years. she lived with her cousins, frances and louisa norcross, and never left amherst.
- Analyzes how emily dickinson's poetry reflected on her life including hope, death, and loss. we may never know the depth of her illness, but what would happen if we found out?
- Cites brainy quotes' "emily dickinson: the later years (1865-1886)."
732 wordsRead More - The Treatment of Marriage in Two Literary Worksargumentative essayHughes Gertrude Reif. (Spring 1986). Subverting the Cult of Domesticity: Emily Dickinson’s Critique of Woman’s Work. Legacy. Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 17-2
In this essay, the author
- Describes hughes gertrude reif's book, subverting the cult of domesticity: emily dickinson’s critique of woman
- Explains professor catherine lavender for history 386 (women's pasts -- women in new york city, 1890-1940), the department of history of the college of staten island.
- Analyzes welter, barabara, the cult of true womanhood: 1820-1860, american quarterly, vol. 18, no. 2, part 1, pp.
- Describes gilman, c. perkins, and shulman. the yellow wall-paper and other stories.
- Compares the characters of lydia and john's wife in "souls belated" and "the yellow wallpaper".
2244 wordsRead More