Nature in its many facets is a frequent topic of Dickinson’s poems, and she often chooses one or two specific elements to closely describe in her unique voice. In closely examining a specific item or instance, she often tries to see it from an...

Emily Dickinson’s poem, numbered 622, opens with the line, “To know just how He suffered—would be dear—” (Dickinson 1). The speaker in this poem addresses the subject of death, forming fragmented thoughts and questions about the passing of a loved...

In considering the matter of Emily Dickinson’s poem LXV of Part Four: Time and Eternity, it is worth noting that she wrote in one of her letters that ‘To be human is more than to be divine, for when Christ was divine, he was uncontented until he...

Although society has historically told women that they have no role in literature, generating the notion that they are incapable, women writers, specifically poets, have risen up to defeat this constriction and ultimately changed the literary and...

Truth is something that can never be thoroughly understood or known at all, thought Dickinson. She used poetry as a way to look for it, only to have more questions pop up every time she thought she had found it. That is the thing with truth, she...

Emily Dickinson is perhaps one of the most intriguing American poets studied. The remote look in her eyes mirror her life, which she mostly spent secluded in her home in Amherst, Massachusetts. While leading an outwardly reclusive life, she...

Emily Dickinson's poem, "I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died," is an attempt to answer one of the premier questions of life: What happens when we die? In her word choice, images, and patterns of sound, Dickinson reflects the incongruence between the...

Emily Dickinson never became a member of the church although she lived in a typical New England Puritan community all her life. The well-known lines, "Some - keep the Sabbath - going to church - / I - keep it - staying at Home -" (P-236 [B];...

Over the past few decades, a considerable number of comments have been made on the idea of eternity in Emily Dickinson's poetry. The following are several examples: Robert Weisbuch's Emily Dickinson's Poetry (1975), Jane Donahue Eberwein's...

Emily Dickinson's "Wild Nights--Wild Nights!" is as enigmatic as it is condensed. Most critics agree that it is an essentially erotic poem, but interpretations vary widely within that shared recognition of its eroticism. There is disagreement as...

Emily Dickinson's poetry covers a broad range of topics, including poetic vision, love, nature, prayer, death, God, Christ, and immortality. There is a unity in her poetry, however, in that it focuses primarily on religion. Full of contradictions...

With a few straight lines, perhaps a dot, and an occasional squiggle, Word is born. Despite its humble beginnings, Word holds the possibility of greatness: the ability to cause war, to make peace, to express love, to describe fear. While many...

In Emily Dickinson's 419th untitled poem, more commonly known by its first line, "We grow accustomed to the Dark-", the speaker describes two distinct situations in which people must gradually adjust to "darkness". The first portion is fairly...

Dickinson’s poem “Publication –is the Auction” deals with the speaker’s disdain toward the publication of an author’s works. The speaker seems to regard the act of publishing work as an act of selling oneself short, compromising one’s purity and...

Emily Dickinson’s poem “Tell all the Truth but tell it slant” speaks of the universal idea of truth and the notion that truth should be revealed gradually. The language is vague, however, and deconstructs itself in many ways. Lack of punctuation,...

Emily Dickinson's poem, “My Life Had Stood - A Loaded Gun,” explores grim themes found behind the romanticized perception of love. In the beginning of the work, Dickinson shows the headstrong and volatile nature of the speaker. A man chooses this...

John Donne and Emily Dickinson, in their poems “Death Be Not Proud” and “Because I Could Not Stop for Death,” personify death in order to explain the phenomenon of death and, more importantly, the wonder of eternal life. In his Holy Sonnet “Death...

I Felt a Funeral in my Brain presents a narrative image of one slowly descending into madness and gives the reader a first person outlook on the whole ordeal. This poem, written by Emily Dickinson, a depressed antisocial poet, was written in 1862...

Emily Dickinson uses the power of metaphor and symbolism in her poem "My Life had stood-" to express the way she felt about herself as a poet in a time when women were allowed far less independent thought and freedom of expression; she gives her...

“Alabaster Chambers”, much like many of Emily Dickinson's other works, showcases the theme of death without directly addressing the subject but instead guides the readers to the topic by means of the imagery. The first stanza of the original 1859...

1. Introduction

Among different topics appearing in literary texts, death is one aspect that many writers will address. For ages, death has been portrayed as an ultimate bad character which is evil, disastrous but sadly inevitable. However in the...

“A Death blow is a Life blow to some” says Emily Dickinson in poem 816 (Dickinson 816). Emily Dickinson did not commit suicide-- she died of her numerous medical conditions at the age of 55 in 1886. Her personal life was famously enigmatic, as she...

“Heaven—is what I cannot reach,” wrote Emily Dickinson in one of her many poems. Again and again, we see the same theme in her works. Her time period was one that emphasized the need for women to play a role as specified by the teachings of the...

“Whenever a thing is done for the first time, it releases a little demon” (Dickinson, n.d.). At first glance, this utterance by Emily Dickinson conveys a negative attitude towards the unique and the new. However, upon second interpretation, this...