Verified Document

Emily Dickinson -- "Because I Essay

Related Topics:

And so in just a few lines the poet has taken the reader from her childhood, to the autumn of her years, and on to eternity. The sun was setting and first she says she was passing by the sun but then, changes her tune and admits the sun is passing by the carriage. How could the sun pass by a carriage that is moving towards heaven? "Or rather, he passed us"; by personifying the sun this way the poet makes it seem like the carriage is moving very slowly.

When the sun sets she feels a chill because she is dressed only in a gossamer gown, but why is she in the thin gown? Earlier the reader had the impression that she was fully prepared for death and that it was seemingly comfortable for her. When she writes that "He knew no haste, and I had put away My labor, and my leisure too…" it would appear that dying was a fairly smooth process...

This could be the poet's way of saying that there were surprises at the time of death. It was cold and she wasn't prepared for it. One is never prepared for death -- that might be the implication and suggestion here. Since she first noticed that the horses' heads "were toward eternity" the time has passed "shorter every day." She wasn't prepared for that either it seems.
The way Dickenson has structured this poem does not make me more or less fearful of death, but it does make me respectful of the poet's ability to create many poignant images with the use of just a very few words. The gift of a poet to the community of readers is only given if the readers enjoy the poem and attempt to understand it.

Cite this Document:
Copy Bibliography Citation

Related Documents

Emily Dickinson's Poems
Words: 1104 Length: 3 Document Type: Term Paper

Emily Dickinson and Ezra Pound Ezra Pound's poem "The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter" is inspired by Chinese poetry, and dramatizes the situation of the Chinese wife of a traveling salesman. In its empathetic portrayal of the life of a woman, it resembles poems by Emily Dickinson -- but the difference is, of course, that Pound's form is fundamentally dramatic. Pound announces, in his title, the speaker of the poem. Dickinson's lyric

Emily Dickinson and "The World Is Not
Words: 1776 Length: 6 Document Type: Essay

Emily Dickinson and "The World is Not Conclusion" The poems of Emily Dickinson have been interpreted in a multitude of ways and often it is hard to separate the narrator of her works with the woman who wrote them. Few authors have such a close association between the individual and their work as Emily Dickinson. In Dickinson's poetry, the narrator and the poet are often seen as interchangeable beings. Themes that

Emily Dickinson Is Often Cited
Words: 2436 Length: 8 Document Type: Thesis

" typical way in which a poem by Dickinson is structured is by the use of the "omitted center." This means that an initial statement is followed by an apparent lack in development and continuity and the inclusion of strange and seemingly alien ideas. However, these often contradictory ideas and images work towards a sense of wholeness and integrity which is essentially open-ended in terms of its meaning. "Often the

Emily Dickinson Is Viewed by
Words: 2068 Length: 7 Document Type: Term Paper

The study of geology becomes a central underlying theme in many of her works due to the influence of Hitchcock. Dickinson adopted the view that the study of nature should be an intermingled spiritual as well as naturalist journey, and as a result, places strong emphasis on how to explore spiritual and romantic Truth, through the allegory of nature and geology. Dickinson's poetic vision was not to advocate the strong

Emily Dickinson Thematic, Stylistic and
Words: 671 Length: 2 Document Type: Term Paper

.. "I could not see to see" (from Dickinson, "465"). Words; phrases, and lines of poetry composed by Dickinson, within a given poem, are also typically set off, bookend-like (if not ruptured entirely at the center) by her liberal use of various punctuation "slices" (or perhaps "splices" is the better word) appearing most often in the form of either short and/or longer dashes (or combinations of these), e.g.: "-"; and/or

Emily Dickinson's Poem 632 "The Brain --
Words: 1137 Length: 3 Document Type: Essay

Emily Dickinson's poem 632 ("The Brain -- is wider than the sky -- ") is, in its own riddling way, a poem that grapples with the Christian religion, while at the same time being a poem about the poetic imagination itself. Dickinson's religious concerns are perhaps most evident when considering the form of the poem (and indeed the form of so many of her poems). The meter and the rhyme

Sign Up for Unlimited Study Help

Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.

Get Started Now