The Human Condition In Emily Dickinson's Poetry

Improved Essays
Poetry is an art form in which the human language is written for its aesthetic qualities instead of notional and semantic content. Poetry can be discerned most of the time from text, which is language meant to express meaning in a more extensive and less condensed way. This doesn’t show that poetry is illogical, but shows how it is used to sometimes escape reality and expresses emotions in a compact form. In most poems the poet will focus on an aspect of the human condition. An example of this is how Emily Dickinson who’s poems shows evidence of the human predicament and how the human life is too short to end it well. Emily Dickinson has shown the Human Condition in her poems by revolving most aesthetics of her poems around death. Three poems …show more content…
Dickinson was educated at Amherst Academy and the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in her school years. She was a very bright student despite her missing long stretches of school due to both illness and depression. In 1848 she left the school for good, with no known reason. Her early influences as a teenager were Leonard Humphrey, the principal of Amherst Academy, and a family friend named Benjamin Franklin Newton who later introduced her to the poetry of William Wordsworth. It has been speculated by scholars that Emily Dickinson suffered from depression throughout her life and possibly had some fears that stopped her from leaving the house much. Emily was also entrusted with the care of her ailing mother. These reasons could lead to why Emily’s Poetry was dark …show more content…
When analysing this poem you can see how Dickinson outlines the subject matter of death stopping for her as if he were to court her to her grave and immortality being their chaperone. This basically means that death is always with her in her mind. The purpose is to reconfigure the representation of death. The poem presents death as a part of the life process. The theme might be calling upon individuals to re-examine their traditional opinions of death and bring about the change required in order to fully understand death 's role in highlighting life and the part of life that death is. The poem is written with a sense of almost calm understanding that death is a part of life and although it can be sad it is also just part of the human life. Many poetic devices are used in the poem to enhance its meaning, such as rhythm and repetition. The rhythm used through the poem is like the emotion, it’s smooth and calm in a way despite the poet being on a date with death, this is to further enhance the emotion. Repetition is then used in lines nine, eleven and twelve when the poet says they passed certain sceneries. She does this to show something symbolic, creating an impact as if they are passing from life to death. This supports how Emily Dickinson is focusing on the human condition of the human predicament and how death is always with you and coming

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Another pattern in the poem is the use of the words, "We passed" in lines 9,11, and 12. In line 17 similar wording is used but is changed to, "We paused". The poem flows smoothly which adds to the beauty of the poem. It is a well told story of the speaker remembering her former life and the day of her death. She portrays a picture of death being kind and peaceful and although she lead a busy life death is something she could not escape thus accepted it with…

    • 842 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    These pieces from Dickinson’s poem are reflecting the way we look at death and how we react when graced with certain events in life. At the same time, Dickinson provides comfort to people who have lost someone along with a chance to keep themselves and their loved ones in a state that would help them live a long, productive…

    • 988 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Sources say that “In her early years Dickinson was mostly influenced by Leonard Humphrey, the principal at her school,…

    • 1509 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Her father would never approve of her not going to school. According to (Emily Dickinson/Biography.com, 2017), Emily was educated at Amherst Academy (now known as Amherst College) for seven years and according to (Emily Dickinson, 2015), She also attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley, but was only there for a year. However, according to (Emily Dickinson/Biography.com, 2017), Emily never did really give anyone a real reason for why she left school. But, she left and never returned. Most say it was to pursue her dream of writing…

    • 2789 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In her poem “Because I could not stop for Death”, Dickinson portrays the journey the speaker goes on after her death. It is through this journey that readers can have a sense of understanding that death is not one specific set of characteristics. Death does not have to…

    • 803 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Emily Dickinson, an introverted American poet with epilepsy, wrote her way into the world of literature in a distinctive and intriguing manner. Her words, while often unrhymed, have left a perpetual ringing in the minds of her readers. Her poems will forever provide them with wonder, however, one may find themselves speculating about what influenced Miss Dickinson to write her poetry the way that she did. Richard Wilbur, an American poet, described Emily Dickinson with the following quote; “I think that for her there are three major privations: she was deprived of an orthodox and steady religious faith; she was deprived of love; she was deprived of literary recognition.” (p.859) Wilbur’s interpretation of Miss Dickinson’s…

    • 1052 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Emily Dickinson Emily Dickinson is one of America’s most well known poets. Ironically during her time, she chose to seclude herself from her family and friends towards the end of her life. She chose to live her life from within her property.…

    • 1108 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Emily is a mystery to a lot of people, she lived at home with her family but was very isolated and few people talked to her. Emily Dickinson had a number of diagnoses of why she was the way she expressed her feelings in her poetry which was distinctive to a lot of people. According to…

    • 800 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Emily Dickinson Outline

    • 879 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Throughout her life, Dickinson was overshadowed by plethora amount of deaths. Her favorite cousin and nephew, her mentor, and both of her parents died. She also suffered from depression and anxiety. Emily Dickinson talks about death and nature in her poems. “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” was written in 1863 and is mainly about how Death is portrayed as…

    • 879 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Things Unexpectedly Happen Death will come for everyone at one point, it doesn 't matter if a person is prepared or not. Even though the poem “Because I could not stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson was written in 1863, it is still relevant today. Not only does it represent what Dickinson was feeling, and shows how people today can relate to the poem, I’m one of those people that cannot help but to feel emotional towers the poem. Most of Emily Dickinson’s poems reflect what she was going through during the time that she was writing each of her poems.…

    • 757 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Attitude towards Death in Emily Dickinson’s Poetry Emily Dickinson was a poet born in Massachusetts. Her works were all published posthumously as while she wrote poetry, she did not publish any of her own works. Included in these works are the poems “Because I could not stop for Death” and “I felt a Funeral in my Brain”.…

    • 1514 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    When Emily Dickinson was born, her father Edward was a young lawyer who was educated at Amherst and Yale. He followed his fathers footsteps and joined him in law practices. Edward Dickinson was also active in the Whig Party, he was elected to the Massachusetts State Legislature from 1837 to 1839 and the Massachusetts State Senate from 1842 to 1843. In addition he served a single term as a representative from Massachusetts to the U.S. Congress. Compared to Emily Dickinson’s father, little is know about her mother.…

    • 1766 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Emily Dickinson’s poetry reflects a sense of death and inclusiveness that stemmed from her own life. Dickinson lived a life of solitude and only accepted a few chosen people to visit her or to correspond with. Unlike those of her time period, she did not find pleasure in entertaining visitors nor did she conform to religious or societal expectations of the society she was living in. Her works of poetry correspond with her life of seclusion and only having a small social group. It has been rumored that her reclusiveness and poetry lament of an unreciprocated love that may have been related to her relationships with Reverend Charles Wadsworth or Otis P. Lord.…

    • 863 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Life, Death, and What Comes Next Emily Dickinson is well known for style of poetry, as well as her ability to tackle tough subjects. Dickinson’s poetry mainly focuses on the nature of life, death, and the afterlife. Dickinson crafted a unique style in writing. “Her dazzling complex lyrics- compressed statements abounding in startling imagery and marked by an extraordinary vocabulary- explore a wide range of subjects……

    • 2198 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Brilliant Essays

    Dickinson begins by telling the reader that she and Death are passengers in a carriage. This personification is meant to show the constant presence of the idea of death in Dickinson’s life. The first stanza…

    • 2688 Words
    • 11 Pages
    • 3 Works Cited
    Brilliant Essays

Related Topics