Emily Dickinson’s Poetry-A Thematic Study
EMILY DICKINSON’S POETRY-A THEMATIC STUDY
By
Menonim Menonimus
Internet Edition
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Emily Dickinson’s Poetry-A Thematic Study, (A Collection of Critical Essays on Emily Dickinson’s Poetry) by Menonim Menonimus.
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First Published: 2019
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My Patron and ever Well-wiser.
— Menonim Menonimus
CONTENTS
- The theme of Love in the Poetry of Emily Dickinson
- Mysticism in the Poetry of Emily Dickinson
- The Theme of Death in the Poetry of Emily Dickinson
- Nature in the Poetry of Emily Dickinson
- The Theme of Pain and Sufferance in the Poetry of Emily Dickinson
- The Poetic Technique (Style) of Emily Dickinson
EMILY DICKINSON’S POETRY-A THEMATIC STUDY (TEXT)
The Theme of Love in the Poetry of Emily Dickinson
Miss Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) was a great poetess of America. She wrote poems on a variety of themes among which the theme of love plays a salient role in his poetry. She had written a large number of poems on this theme through which she expresses her private love affairs with several persons. But her love poems are full of ambiguity, obscurity and puzzling to comprehend easily. To understand her love poems we must turn to her private life— because her poems are the reflection of her own life— her thought, feeling, sentiments, whims and philosophy which are something wayward. Miss Emily Dickinson had never been married and led a virgin life. But though she remained unmarried throughout her life yet she went into the contact of some distinguished male friends. With whom, it is believed, she had fallen in love. Amongst them, the one was Helen Haunt Jackson who achieved fame by writing a book entitled Romana. He remained a friend to her for some years and inspired her to pursue the writing of poetry. Secondly, she went into the touch of another literary man by the name of Mr Benjamin Newton. He tried to guide her in the field of poetry reading and writing. An intimacy developed between them and Miss Emily took him to be her would-be lover or a life partner. But one day in 1853, while Miss Emily was twenty-three years old, he died suddenly. The death of Benjamin Newton gave her a shock. A year later, she travelled to Philadelphia where she met a married clergyman by the name of Charles Wordsworth. She respected him much and took him as her lover and exchanged several letters with him. But eventually, in 1860 Charles Wordsworth cut off the communication with her. Then she chose a life of seclusion and had been keeping herself most at home. In 1878 she met another gentleman by the name of Otis P. Lord. He was a judge of the supreme court of Massachusetts—a distinguished and casually attractive man. He was one of her father’s best friends and much senior to her. She had written about a dozen letters to him which proved that she was emotionally in deep love with him. But neither to him nor to the former friends had she revealed her love deliberately. Perhaps the cause of her secrecy in expressing her desire of love to them was that all those persons were distinguished and well-established for which she, thinking herself to be a worthless simple girl, hesitated to express her deep love to them. But throughout her life, she had kept their images warm in her mind and in her poems she often made references of them. But her love as expressed in her poems is less and less physical and more and more spiritual. She thought that physical love begot pain, sufferance and despair. It is only spiritual love which inspires a heart to live. As she was rejected by her friends so she became desperate in worldly or physical love and wished to unite with them spiritually and this thought kept her heart warm. As her love is spiritual and as she wished to be united with her lovers in heaven so her love poems have become ambiguous—because, after death, she imagined to get united with her lover. But who was her loved person? Sometimes God or Christ stands as her lover who would give her shelter in heaven amid joy, peace and happiness and sometimes she refers to her earthly friends whom she had lost. A critical study of her major love poems clarifies something of the mystery.
The poetess Emily Dickinson was, as a lover, an extraordinary one. She loved her loved person very deeply. In the poem, My Life Had Stood—A Loaded Gun she wrote that one day her lover took her to a secluded wood where they enjoyed hunting pleasure and slept with her. She says:
‘And when at night—our good day done—
I guard my master’s head—’
Again in the same poem, she continues to tell that she is a deadly foe to the foe of her loved person and it proves how deeply she was in love with her lover. To say in the poetess’ words:
‘To foe of his—I’m deadly foe—
None stir the second time.’
In another poem entitling My Life Closed Twice before it Close — she makes a reference of her two lovers—perhaps Newton and Wordsworth—who had left her and gave a shock. She became desperate but she did not lose hope. Though the loss of her two friends fell a deadly shock on her heart yet she wished that she would meet her desired lover after death. In her own words:
‘My life closed twice before its close—
It yet remains to see
If Immortal— unveil
A third event to me.’
‘Just Lost When I was Saved ‘is a poem which may be interpreted in the light of her private love-life. In this poem, she refers to Benjamin Newton with whom she fell in love. He died while Emily was twenty-third years old. His death gave her a shock and broke her heart, but later on, she had fallen in love with Wordsworth and reawakened her heart but eventually, he also rejected her — the rejection of whom gave a blow to her heart. In the poem she says:
‘Just lost, when I was saved!
Just felt the world go by!’
Through this poem, the poetess tries to exhibit that worldly love or desire for sexual love begets despair.
The above discussion shows us that Miss Emily Dickinson’s sense of love was first worldly and then it developed into divine feeling through silent sufferance of the pain of separation.
In American literature, Emily Dickinson as a love poetess is a difference because her sense of love is more divine and spiritual if compared to other love American love poets. 0 0 0
Emily Dickinson’s Poetry – A Thematic Study
The Theme of Mysticism in the Poetry of Emily Dickinson
A true mystic is a person who believes that there is the existence of only one Supreme Soul ( the Divine soul or the soul of God) which expresses Himself through the objects of Nature (creations of God) and a human soul can make a communication with the supreme soul through three stages as—the purgation of sin, contemplation on God and at last union of human soul with the supreme soul. But in the broadest sense of the term, in literature, ‘mysticism’ involves with such fundamental problems as—death, soul the immortality of the soul, God, heaven, hell, angel etc. The ultimate goal of a mystic person is to make spiritual contact with the soul of God. Emily Dickinson, a great poetess of America, is not a true mystic to the stickiest sense of the term; but many of her poems deal with the themes of death, soul, God, heaven, hell, angel etc. In this respect, she may be called a mystic poetess. An analysis of her poems clears us with this hypothesis.
Death is a theme which is ever-present in her poetry. She feels that death is an inevitable power which chases human soul every moment. Emily Dickinson tastes death daily. In the poetry “I felt a Funeral in my Brain”. She expresses her feeling as:
‘I felt a Funeral in my brain
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading—treading—till it seemed
That sense was breaking through—’
The poetess thinks that death is a medium through which a human soul unites with the soul of God. If death comes to a person he enters into the state of God i.e. heaven forever. In the poem, The Soul Selects Her Own Society, she says:
‘The soul selects her own society
Then—shuts the Door—
To her divine Majority—
Present no more—.’
‘I Heard a Fly Buzz—When I Died’ is another poem dealing with the theme of death. In this poem, she experiences death by anticipation. She says:
‘I heard a fly buzz — when I died—
The stillness in the room
Was like the stillness in the Air—
Between the Heaves of Storm.’
“To Hear an Oriole Sing” is a poem in which she inclines to say that God expresses Himself through the objects of nature and hence she thinks that the song of an oriole may be divine. On the poetess’ words:
‘To hear an Oriole sing
May be a common thing—
Or only a divine.’
In the poem ‘Because I Could Not Stop for Death’ the poetess expresses her mystic belief that death leads a man to Eternity—where the human soul lives forever. She says:
‘I first surmised the horses’ heads
Were toward Eternity —’
In the poem ‘Behind Me Dips Eternity,’ the poetess again portrays her view on immortality and says:
‘Behind Me—dips eternity
Before me —immortality
Myself the term between —
Death but the Drift of Eastern Gray.’
The poetess thinks that death leads us to heaven, but to enter into heaven, the human soul must be purged of sin through suffering the agony of sin in hell. She says in ‘My Life Closed Twice Before it Close.’
‘Parting is all we know of heaven
And all we weed of hell.’
The above analyses of her major poems show us that the poetess experiences not direct contact with the Divine soul but she only anticipates the union of her soul with the Divine Soul through death. Hence she may be called a poetess inclined to mysticism. 0 0 0
Emily Dickinson’s Poetry – A Thematic Study
The Theme of Death in the Poetry of Emily Dickinson
Miss Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) was a great female poet of America. She wrote poetry on a variety of themes such as—death, nature, love, pain and sufferance and so on. Amongst these, the theme of death plays an important appealing role in her poetry. She had written as much as five hundred poems on the theme of death. A reading of his poetry shows that the feeling of death haunted her throughout her life and she died daily and experienced it daily. Death, she considered, to be a gateway which led one to immortality. She gained both the grim and pleasant sides of death. Death sometimes became her playmate and sometimes it became a source of horror and sufferance. A close study of her poems clarifies this.
‘Because I Could Not Stop for Death’ is one of her best poems written on the theme of death. In this poem, she visualizes death as a cart-man. Hence, in this poem death is portrayed as her playmates. Death is very kind and generous to her. Death carries her to immortality. The poetess says:
‘Because I could not stop for Death
He kindly stops for me—
The carries held but just ourselves—
And immortality.’
The poetess gives a very vivid picture of her journey with Death leading to eternity. The description is very vivid and realistic. She says in the third stanza of the said poem as:
‘We passed the school, where Children strove
At Recess—in the Ring—
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain—
We passed the Setting Sun—’
‘I Felt a Funeral in My Brain’ is another poem on the theme of death. In this poem, she visualizes the ritual works after her death by anticipation. But in it she expresses no grim side of death but simply says:
‘I felt a Funeral in My Brain
And Mourners to and fro.
Kept treading—treading—till it seemed
That sense was breaking through—’
In another poem entitled ‘She Lay as if at Play’ she portrays the death scene of a little girl very tenderly. The little girl dies but seems that she is in her play. The poetess says:
‘She lay as if at play
Her life had leaped away—
Intending to return—
But not so soon.’
In the poem ‘I Heard a Fly Buzz’ the poet has visualized her own death. She dies in calm; there is no din and bustle. In her own words:
‘I heard a fly buzz—when I died—
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air—
Between the Heaven and Storm—’
Thus from the above analysis of some of her poems, it has seen that Emily Dickinson’s poem dealing with the theme of death are very explicit and visual through which her mystic and philosophic view on death is divulged. Sometimes he has gone away from Christian principles and traditional belief. She says, certainly that death leads one to heaven and it makes an end to the sorrow, sufferance, distress and despair in life. Her place as a poet of death is after none in American literature though there was Walt Whitman who also wrote some poems on the same themes but it was Dickinson who always bore the memory of imminent death with her and unlocked that feeling explicitly in her poems. 0 0 0
Emily Dickinson’s Poetry – A Thematic Study
Nature in the Poetry of Emily Dickinson
Miss Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), a great American poetess, had been living throughout the late English Romantic Age and went something under the influence of the English Romantic Movement. Her portrayal of Nature was not Romantic to the true sense of the term—because unlike the English Romantic Poets she did not seek peace, beauty, mystery, moral lesson and joy in the objects of Nature. She, on the contrary, portrayed nature as it was. Sometimes she takes delight and sometimes she mocks at natural objects. She seeks no wisdom, no lesson in nature. She only shows the external aspects of nature with their transience. Sometimes Nature becomes hostile to her. Hence her portrayal of Nature may be called sentimental and whimsical having no fixed aim or philosophy. But it is worth praising that she has brought into account the trifling objects and beings like—bee, flies, caterpillar, whining birds, frog, snake, lizards etc. and the natural phenomena such as—storm, seasons, sunrise and more she has given a good portrayal of various kind of followers, such as—rose, buttercups, daisy, lotus etc. But in many poems, she takes all these objects of Nature not as a primary or main theme but as a metaphor to explain her thought and feeling in poetry. A close study of her major poems shows us how she treated the objects of Nature in her poetry.
In the poem entitled ‘Before I Got My Eye Put Out’, the poetess has expressed her views on Nature that Nature is vaster than her eyes and mind can catch. It is full of mystery and beyond comprehension. Nature is infinite and she is finite. She only takes delights to its external beauty and leaves the internal mystery that lies within it. The poetess says:
‘But were it told to me—Today—
That I might have the sky
For mine—I tell you that my Heart
Would split for size of me—’
Emily Dickinson’s objects of Nature seem to be alien and indifferent to man. They are always natural and wild. Her nature has not taken the poetess to be her own. Nature is always Nature and beyond it there is nothing. In the poem ‘A Bird Came Down the Walk’, she shows Nature to be so. In this poem, she notices a bird eating a worm. Noticing the bird, she offers a ‘crumb’ of her but the bird flies away being indifferent to the poetess. She says:
‘Like one in danger Cautious
I offered him a crumb
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home.’
Sometimes, Dickinson’s portrayal of Nature leans to mysticism. Nature is the expression of an unknown Being. But there is also a doubt. In the poem ‘To Hear Oriole Sing’, she writes:
‘To hear an Oriole sing
May be a common thing—
Or only a divine.
…………………….
It is not the Bird
Who sing the same, unheard
As unto crowd.’
Nature is not always friendly to Emily Dickinson, though she thinks the beings of nature to be so. Sometimes nature and its objects stand hostile to her. In the poem, ‘A Narrow Fellow in the Grass’, she thinks the snakes to be friendly to her; but the snake seems not to be so. She writes:
‘Have passed, I thought a whip lash
Unbraiding in the sun
When stopping to secure it
It wrinkled and was gone.’
Emily Dickinson thinks that Nature is changing and with the change of season the forms and motives of Nature also change. In the poem ‘Further in Summer than the Birds’, she portrays a well-known insect, the cricket to be a symbol of pathos in winter. He says:
Further in summer than the Birds
Pathetic from the Grass
A minor Nation celebrates.
Its unobtrusive Mass
……………………..
……………………..
Remit as yet no Grace
No furrow on the Glow
Yet a Druidic Difference
Enhances Nature now.’
Emily Dickinson has portrayed the seasons of summer, winter and spring in her poetry with their respective common symbols. Spring for her is full of beauty and charm, so is summer with its own freshness. And so winter stands as a symbol of grim, melancholy and sorrow. She praises spring to be the best. In the poem ‘A Light Exists in Spring’, she says:
‘A Light exists in spring
Not present on the year
At any other period—
When March is scarcely here.’
Emily Dickinson, like a true romantic, sometimes gives a very sensitive description of natural phenomena. In the poem ‘I’ll Tell How the Sun Rose’, she gives a very fascinating description of the sun rising scene as—
‘Blazing in gold and quenching in purple
Leaping like leopards to the sky.’
Thus from the above analyses, it is seen that Emily Dickinson’s portrayal of Nature is romantic no doubt but having no definite phase with definite philosophy. 0 0 0
Emily Dickinson’s Poetry – A Thematic Study
The Theme of Pain and Sufferance in the Poetry of Emily Dickinson
Miss Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), one of the great poetess of America, had written poetry on a variety of themes; but almost all her poems are the utterance of a forlorn, crest-fallen, desperate soul and through the poems she has poured down her sorrows, pain and sufferance that she faced and felt in life. And in doing so, she has thrown her discriminating eyes on the nature of pain—its stages, its effects on the human soul and finally the relation of pain with death and God. A study of her poems shows that throughout her life she nursed in her heart, a deep source of hidden pain, sufferance caused by despair of her personal life. But all the pain and sufferance she bore always with herself under suppression, which grew out bit by bit in her poetry. But what were the causes of her despair that caused her to suffer in life? To get its proper reply, we must look back to her personal life. In her childhood, she seemed to be an active sprightly humorous girl. But with the passing of years, she became internally gloomy, melancholic, home-sick and took to lead a secluded life keeping away from the outward social world. The causes of her change were perhaps, the death of her parents, the disappointment in love affairs and her inclination to literary persuasion. In 1878, when Emily was thirty-seven years old, she lost her father and her mother became paralyzed a year later. The death of her father gave her a shock and this shock was multiplied while after seven years of her father’s death, her mother died leaving the family without a guardian. Already she had gone to the contact of some male friends with whom she fell in love. Amongst them, Benjamin Newton was one. He encouraged her to take to poetry-writing and studying. But in 1853 he died suddenly which slacked her spirit. A year later of that event, she met Charles Wordsworth, a married clergyman and thought him to be her lover. They also exchanged letters. But he also forsook her. Later on, she made friends with Otis P. Lord and fell passionately in love with him. It is a matter of regret that none of her lovers married her, and she also gave no proposal of marriage to anyone of them. As a result, she remained unmarried throughout her life. All these cases, perhaps, had broken the spirit of her heart and she became desperate. The despairs caused by these events begot pain in her which got reflected in her poems. But she had never cursed pain in life. Instead, she took pain as a touchtone for estimating the depth of the human soul. Her outlook on pain and suffering was that pain humanized human soul and it was necessary to have a better life after death. Now let us examine her poems as below:
In the poem ‘I Never Lost as Much but Twice’, she makes a reference to the loss of Benjamin Newton and Charles Wordsworth whom she thought to be her would-be life-companions. The loss of them caused despair in her heart and she stood in the door of God as a beggar to get back her lovers, but God showed no sympathy to her. Hence she says satirically.
‘I never lost as much but twice
And that was in the sod.
Twice have I stood a beggar
Before the door of God.
Angels—Twice descending
Reimbursed my store—
Burglar—Banker—Father!
I am poor once more!’
Pain is needed to feel the significance of joys and pleasure. In the poem ‘Success is Counted Sweetest’, she expresses this view metaphorically as—
‘Success is counted sweetest
By those who never succeeded
To comprehend a water
Requires sorest need.’
Despair haunts her throughout her life. Being weary of despair, she desires to take shelter in God, but God also disappoints her. She says in the poem ‘Just Lost When I was Saved’, as—
‘Just lost, when I was saved!
Just felt the world go by!
Just girt me for the onset with Eternity.’
‘There is a Certain Slant of Light’ is a poem in which she exhibits that pain and sufferance are sent by heaven to the human soul. None can get rid of it. It is only death which can make an end of sufferance. In this poem, the poetess shows the nature of pain caused by despair in the earthly matter. She says:
‘There’s certain slant of light
Winter Afternoon—
That oppresses like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes.
Heavenly hurt it gives as—
We can find no scar,
…………………….
…………………….
None may teach it—Any—
‘Tis the Seal Despair—
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air—’
The poetess was so much overwhelmed by pain that she often imagined the shadow of death was in front of her and often she ‘felt funeral’ in her mind. By the word ‘funeral, she wants to show how deep was her pain that caused her sufferance. In the poem ‘I felt a Funeral in My Brain’, she says:
‘I felt a Funeral in my brain,
And Mourners to and fro
………………………….
……………………………
And Being but an ear
And I silence, some strange Race
Wrecked, Solitary here—’
To those who are strong enough, experiencing pain is necessary which strengthens the spirit of the soul and teaches how to face the reality of life with much vigour. But the pain that a human soul suffers is deadly. The poetess says:
‘After great pain, a formal feeling comes—
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs—
…………………………………………….
This is the Hour of Lead—
Remembered if outlived,
As freezing persons, recollect the snow—
First—Chill—then stupor—then the letting go—’
‘My Life Closed Twice Before Its Close’, is a poem that may be interpreted in the light of her personal despair gotten from love when she lost her would-be life partners—Benjamin Newton and Charles Wordsworth. The death of them was like the death of herself. She says:
‘My life closed twice before its close—
It yet remains to see.
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me.
So huge, so hopeless to conceive
As these that twice befell
Parting is all we know of heaven
And we all need of hell.’
From the above discussion, it comes visible that Emily Dickinson led a life loaded with despair, and frustration that caused her sufferance, and almost all her poems bear the stamp of what had happened to her private life. 0 0 0
Emily Dickinson’s Poetry – A Thematic Study
The Poetic Technique (Style) of Emily Dickinson
‘Style’ refers to the characteristic manner or way of expression in prose or verse- it is how a speaker or writer represents whatever he says. The analysis and assessment of style involve the examination of the method, structure, device and diction of any literary art. The level of style should be appropriate to the speaker, occasion and dignity of a literary genre. Amongst the major poets of America, Miss Emily Dickinson is one who is a subject of much discussion as a queer poetess since her death till today and it is for her peculiar poetic style. She had written about two thousand poems in a style which seems strange, quaint and bold without having any precedent. Her style is full of originality and novelty which belongs to her and her alone. The ungrammatical and abundant use of capital letters, marked use of abundant dashes, the use of familiar terms, words and phrases in an unfamiliar way, the bold use of metaphor, use of both regular and irregular rhymes and prosody, strange imagery and the brevity of expression are the main characteristics of her poetic style.
The Use of Capital Letters: The first characteristic of her style which catches the attention of every reader is the use of capital letters. She uses capital letters ungrammatically and abundantly. She capitalizes sometimes nouns, sometimes pronouns, sometimes verbs, sometimes adverbs, and what not! But what is the function of the use of abundant capital letters in her poetry? A scrutinized study shows that, perhaps, she used capital letters to her keywords to signify that they are worth emphasizing. For example, we can quote the following four lines:
‘Papa above!
Regard a Mouse
O’er powered by the cat!
Reserved within thy Kingdom.
A ‘Mansion’ for the Rat!’
Again we can take another poem entitled ‘I went to Heaven’ for instance. It is a poem consisting of only fifty words but it has eleven capitals, not counting sixteen capitals at the beginning of lines.
The Abundant Use of Dashes: The second outstanding trait of her style is the abundant use of dashes. She uses dashes at random without any grammatical rule. But her dashes signify more functions in addition to their general uses. Sometimes her dashes stand as ‘aposiopesis’ (aposiopesis is a figure of speech by which a writer or speaker suddenly breaks from what he is going to say and leaves the sentence incomplete as if unable or unwilling to continue) sometimes the dashes stand for commas, sometimes for colons, sometimes to indicate the pause of anticipation or suspense and sometimes for prosody or music. As for example, we can take the poem, ‘These—Saw Vision—’:
‘These—Saw—Vision—
Latch them softly—
These—held Dimples—
Smooth them Slow—
This—addressed departing accents—
Quick—Sweet Mouth—to miss thee so—
This—We stroked—
Unnumbered satin—
These—we held among our own—
Fingers of the Slim Aurora—
Not so arrogant—this Noon—
This—adjust—that ran to meet us—
Pearl—for stocking—pearl for shoe—
Paradise—the only Place
Fit for Her reception—now—’
This is a poem of only fifteen lines, but in this poem, there are as many as twenty-eight dashes. It is the use of abundant dashes which differentiates her style much from that of others.
The Use of Familiar Words in Unfamiliar Ways: The third salient trait of Miss Dickinson’s poetic style is the use of familiar words and phrases in unfamiliar ways. She had a great genius of making phases like Shakespeare—the uses of unfamiliar or invented phrases show her to be so. She uses ‘purple territories’ for mountains; ‘the parlor of the day’ for noon’, ‘a narrow fellow in the grass’ for snake, ‘farther in the summer than the birds’ for cricket etc. But all these uses of familiar phrases in unfamiliar ways enhance the beauty of her poetry.
The Use of Striking Metaphors: The fourth feature of her poetic style is the use of striking metaphors. She drew her metaphors—from Neo-Platonists, from the old and New Testaments of the Bible, from the law, and from science. She uses metaphors not merely for ornamentation or embellishment but for the sake of elucidation, clarification, and amplification of meanings. For example, we can quote the following metaphors from her poetry, at random:
“I felt a Funeral in my Brain”— this metaphor is used to convey the intensity of mental pain.
“A clock stops”—it signifies the meaningless of human life on the earth.
“My life had Stood—a Loaded Gun”— through this metaphor the poetess conveys the passion of love which has excited much in her heart.
Thus her use of metaphor bears symbolic meanings which add to the beauty and charms to her poetry.
The Use of Both Regular and Irregular Rhyme and Prosody: The fifth characteristic of her poetic style is the use of both regular and irregular thymes and prosody sometime with coarse and quaint assonance. She follows no previous rules exactly and strictly. Besides the exact or eye rhymes (as—come, home) she uses identical rhymes such as—stone, stone; vowel rhymes as—see, buy; imperfect rhymes as—time, thine; suspended rhymes as—thing, along. Such is the use of her prosody. But the assonance of her sentence and rhymes are not always musical and melodious—they are often callous and monotonous.
The Use of Strange Imageries: The sixth characteristic of her style is the use of familiar imagery with a strangeness that appeals to the grace of her thoughts. Her imageries are generally made up of metaphors. She is a wonder in creating imageries, as, like Shakespeare, she had the skill to tell a familiar thing in an unfamiliar way. Her nature imageries are especially noteworthy. As for example, we can quote the following imagery which symbolizes humming bird—
‘A Route of Evanescence
With a revolving wheel—
A Resonance of Emerald—
A Rush of Cochineal—’
She gives a metaphorical description of the sunrise and sun-set in the following manner—
‘Blazing in gold and quenching in purple.’
The Brevity of Expression: The seventh but blazing and ever-present peculiarity of her style is the brevity of expression. She had a talent for saying and presenting her thought or feeling in the most simple, concise, and economical manner. Her poems are short and even the contents of them are complete to the sense. Here is an example:
‘Pink—small—and punctual—
Aromatic—low
Convert—in April—
Candid—in May.’
Her brevity of expression corresponds to that of the telegraphic or short-hand use of language.
These are the poetic techniques of Miss Emily Dickinson and the above analysis shows that Emily Dickinson’s style was full of strangeness, quaintness and novelty. She began her poetic career with bold originality and practised it as much as she could. Had she published her poems during her lifetime she would have faced, certainly, adverse criticism, and then she would have been compelled to refine and polish her style. Besides this, the use of illogical capital letters, dashes, and brevity of expression make her poetry a difficult one. And more it is to say that, it is less of her matter, but more of her style, she has been drawing the sympathy of her readers. 0 0 0
*The End of ‘Emily Dickinson’s Poetry — A Thematic Study’*
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