Emily Dickinson’s poems were very
dark and different. One of the poems
that really caught my attention was “712”.
In this poem, Dickinson uses personification to describe death. Death is talked about as if it were a
person. For example, in line 2 of the
poem, she refers to death as “He”. The
line reads, “He kindly stopped for me-“.
Death is referred to as “He” throughout the entire poem and is referred
to as if Death was a man. I believe this
poem is about her journey to the end of life with this “man” called Death. She talks about being in a carriage with
Death, and slowly driving past Schools, Fields, and the setting sun. The poem ends with the line, “were toward
Eternity-“, which I think was referring to dying.
The main theme of her poetry is obviously
death. When she wrote of death however,
she wrote as if it was a person or something that he was fascinated with,
rather than something that was feared.
For example, in poem 712, she refers to death as a person and wrote, “He
kindly stopped for me”. In addition to
giving death human traits, death is talked about in a positive tone, as opposed
to be something fearful or negative.
Emily Dickinson’s poetry really
caught me off guard. I had no idea
someone could be so passionate about death and to also look at death the way
she did. She took death, something that
people fear and something that is usually associated with dark times, and made
death an experience. She wrote about
death curiously, as if she wanted to experiment with death or “meet” death. My favorite poem from this section was
712. I thought it was very interesting
how she gave death a personality and then wrote about a ride that she went on with
death to Eternity.
-Patrick
Emily Dickinson, Poems, Page 482-490.
Hi there, Patrick! I totally agree; Emily Dickinson’s poems are very dark and different! They’re very beautiful in that way. I thought it was very interesting that death was personified, and I never thought of it in the significance that you did, but I’m glad you said that so I can see that now! I said her theme was pain, but it make sense that it’d be death. Thank you for offering another perception of the literature so I can try to understand it further. Great job!!
ReplyDeleteHi Patrick!
ReplyDeleteGreat post, I enjoyed reading what you had to say about Dickinson’s poems! I like that you focused on the theme of death in her poetry and what seems to be her great fascination with death. You’ve pointed out some really interesting points within her writing and the way she spoke of death, it sort of makes me wonder if death was something she longed for.
Hello Patrick, I enjoyed reading your analysis on the poems. I think you did a really good job describing how dark her poems were. The examples from the poems you included went well with further showing how dark her poems were and death's role within them. I like reading the poems and I think you did a good job further explaining what you got out from reading the poem, nice job man.
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