Question: Emily Dickinson is usually treated as a poet obsessed with death and dying. Would you say that this only represents a small part of her canvas?
Or, Though Dickinson is usually treated as a poet of death, she has dealt with many other themes. Discuss.
Or, What are the themes you find in Dickinson's poetry? Discuss.
Or, Illustrate the major themes of Dickinson's poetry.
Answer: Dickinson's treatment of death and dying as an obsession forms a small part of her canvas, indeed. She has dealt with many other themes, and against the perspective of the variety of her poetic themes, death and dying appear to have occupied a small part of her whole canvas as a poet. She has dealt with nature, love, pain and suffering, immortality, God and Christ, and poetry as an art, besides death.
The theme of Nature has been dealt with in a novel way Dickinson's individual way. She has dealt with the natural objects, like the sun, and other celestial bodies, the seasons, especially the spring and summer, and the birds and insects, as forming part of Nature. In the poem “My Cocoon Tightens, Colours Tease”, we have a wonderfully poetic treatment of a chrysalis just before bursting open its cocoon and taking the shape of a butterfly. The poet invests this phenomenon taking place in Nature with a mystic aura and indicates the possible mysterious handling of all affairs great and small, by the Divine Creator. She is fascinated by the beauty of Nature but her fascination is mingled with an awareness of its innate mystery and strangeness. Some of her poems betray her consciousness of Nature's decaying and corruptive power. Poems like "Apparently with No Surprise” are examples. She is doubtful about any clear connection between God, Nature, and man. "A Narrow Fellow in the Grass" deals with a snake, showing the terror and awe that a snake's presence can arouse.
Dickinson's treatment of love is another major theme of her poetry. Some of her love poems are psychological studies of repression of sexual desire. "In Winter in My Room" illustrates the denial and rejection of the compelling pressures of the subconscious on the conscious. The poems like “Come Slowly-Eden” and “A Bee his Burnished Carriage" deal with erotic expectations; the bee-flower image conveys physical desire. Some of her love poems deal with the actual meeting of the lovers. The poems dealing with brides and marriage are some of her most artistic ones. “Of All the Souls That Stand Create” is an eminent poem of such type.
Her views about the immortality of the soul are another noteworthy feature of her poetry. Though she was inclined to believe in immortality, she was always troubled by doubts. The following lines clearly illustrate her belief in immortality:
“The only news I know,Is Bulletins all DayFrom immortalityThe only one meetIs God-”
She regarded immortality as the “flood subject". Her letters and poems continually referred to the problems of faith, the identity of the soul, and the reality of God. The problem of immortality taxed her mind, its mystery became the cause of poetic tension in her. She was never certain that death was the threshold of immortality, she firmly believed that the soul's identity could not be lost.
In some of her poems, Dickinson asserts her firm faith in the immortality of the soul. “Two Lengths Has Everyday", logically argues that the identity of the soul cannot be lost because it is
immortal. The soul not only perceives an object realistically but creates imaginatively its full image. The final stanza of the poem asserts that death will not be able to destroy the soul. It will not even change its identity because man's individual consciousness will guide his journey to immortality.
The earthly vision of immortality's haunting reality is described in “I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed”. It expresses, through a drinking metaphor, the ecstasy that accompanies a revelation. The phrases used to convey the divine exhilaration rather exaggerate the whole thing. “The Soul's Superior Instants” makes use of images of regality and elusiveness to describe the moments of ecstasy. The conclusion of the poem emphasizes the fact that only a few ever perceive the vision of immortality. The vision of immortality is best upheld in the poem “Behind Me Dips Eternity”.
Dickinson's poetry deals with pain and suffering, their nature, their stages, and their effect on the human soul. Much of the poet's mind is revealed-her misery, anguish, and despair, through such poems. Her knowledge of pain was a measuring device for estimating the depth of the human soul. The philosophy of pain and the analysis of its specific characteristics are found in poems like, “I Measure Every Grief I Meet”, “It Was not Death, for I Stood up". "The First Day's Night Had Come", considers the courage required to endure an initial shock and the relief in mastering the first day's pain. "After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes," is perhaps her finest poem about pain. It expresses the fundamental law of pain deduced by Dickinson that pain is an unavoidable aspect of human life.
Poetic art was one of Dickinson's themes. She wrote about fifty poems on the subject of art. Poetry as a theme rivals mortality as her deepest preoccupation. She believed that creative art was painful because it required great effort. “Essentials Oils are Wrung” gives us a comparison between the poetic process and the extraction of perfume from rosebuds. “Dare You See a Soul at the White Heat?” “The One Who Could Repeat the Summer Day" are some of the poems that are concerned with the poet's conception of poetic art.
Besides the above themes, there can be observed numerous other themes in Dickinson's poetry. For example, "Success is Counted Sweetest”, deals with the law of compensation. “A Thought Went up My Mind Today”, deals with the workings of the mind and its powers.
Dickinson's poetry also deals with the theme of God and religion. She treats God and religion. She treats God as an intimate kinsman and calls Him “Jupiter my father” “Old neighbor” and sometimes “Papa above”. Quite frequently Emily Dickinson speaks of faith and God in the most serious language. She tells us in one of her poems:
"To lose one's faith-surpassThe loss of an estate-Because Estates can beReplenished-faith cannot-”
Emily hopes for ultimate redemption:
“I hope the father in the skiesWill lift his little girlOld-fashioned-naughty-every-thingOver the stile of “Pearl”.
To conclude, we find that though death is an important theme in Dickinson's poetry, there are numerous other themes that make Dickinson's poetry enjoyable. Death forms only a small portion of her vast canvas as a poet.
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