Essay 3

The Eternal Suitor

In Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay “The Poet,” he states that the poet is the one who speaks and represents beauty, an “emperor in his own right” (Emerson 296). He believes a great poet is a visionary, a seeker of truth, and a representative of American aesthetic. Emily Dickinson has the qualities to be a visionary, a seeker of truth, and a representative of the American aesthetic because of her use of imagery, her use of personal conflict, and her structural aesthetic.

A great poet often uses imagery to convey a theme. In Dickinson’s poem “Safe in their Alabaster Chambers,” she uses language that presents a calming and soft approach to the scene. The first line “Safe in their Alabaster Chambers -” creates a clean and quiet feeling for the reader (Dickinson 1). The speaker of the poem envisioned death as a calming and eternally peaceful experience, not something to be feared. Dickinson was trying to reimagine people’s views of death. In another poem, “Because I could not stop for Death,” the speaker and Death are travelling in a carriage to the speaker’s death (2-3). By having the speaker share a carriage with Death, shows that Death is not an evil figure, but a kind one. This may be describing what one could call “a date with death.” If a person goes on a date he or she would go with someone who is agreeable, not an evil figure. This connects with the theme of “Safe in their Alabaster Chambers,” that death is calm and quiet, even kind. This theme presented through familiar imagery to the reader shows that death is not something to fear, but an ever-lasting calm. She may have written this theme because many people are afraid of death, especially if they are not certain in their faith.

Dickinson uses her personal conflicts to help her readers better understand how she felt about her faith. For example, in her poem “I heard a Fly buzz – when I died,” it may be trying to portray the uncertainty Dickinson felt about her faith. In the last moment before the speaker’s death, she hears a fly buzzing around the room, distracting her from the peace of dying (1-3). The fly may be a metaphor for Dickinson’s uncertainty of her faith, and it was getting in the way of the speaker’s death, or where the speaker will go after death. The speaker expresses that the fly had interrupted her last bit of peace (12). The speaker allowed the “fly” to interrupt her moment of death and focus on her uncertainty, rather than literally seeing the light as her soul goes to heaven and she died. The fly was an “uncertain – stumbling Buzz - / Between the light – and me – / And then the Windows failed – and then / I could not see to see -” (13-16). At her very last moment the speaker’s eyes closed, and she could not see if it was the Lord who had come to take her for she had been focusing on the fly instead of on Him. The fly had presented itself between the light, or the knowledge, and the speaker in her final moments. In this, Dickinson was trying to reach out to her readers that also may have been uncertain of their faith. By presenting a very auspicious moment in a person’s life, death, Dickinson may have been asking how to be certain of one’s faith, especially when a moment of fact presents itself. In another poem, “‘Faith’ is a fine invention,” Dickinson wrote that faith is an invention and microscopes are more “prudent / In an Emergency!” (1-4). This ties with “I heard a Fly buzz – when I died” because the invention of faith may help a person to accept death, but since the speaker in that poem may have been uncertain of her faith she let the fly interrupt her, making her in desperate need of a microscope.

Emily Dickinson represents an American aesthetic in her poetry. Her poem, “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,” has been set to music many times as a funeral march. A composer named Aaron Copland, set this poem to a slow and lilting funeral march to match the feelings of unease and sadness (Palmer). When someone dies, music can help set the mood. Poems are often set to a meter that fits well with certain songs. There is a constant, loud, slow rhythm that really sets the tone of this poem. Dickinson extended the third lines of each stanza except the last one, breaking the sentences in awkward places. This may cause the reader to feel uneasy and out of sync, which is important for a funeral march because funerals are uncomfortable. This is part of the aesthetic beauty of her poem; she can make a reader feel a certain uneasiness on purpose by using this structure. Dickinson is speaking a truth about funerals, and seems to make them a metaphor for a deeper problem. The structure of the speaker’s brain matches the meter of the poem. It is a constant, uneasy pounding in her head, and she is comparing it to a funeral, the pounding and the frustration. Her originality of putting her thoughts to a tempo of a funeral march adds a certain truth to her feelings.

Emily Dickinson fits Emerson’s description of a great poet. She was very original in terms of structure, and her use of theme and imagery. By using these themes and familiar imagery, it allows the readers of her poems to understand the truths that Dickinson wrote about her feelings. This shows that Dickinson is a great American poet that meets Emerson’s expectations.

Works Cited

Dickinson, Emily. “124.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 8th ed. Vol. B. New York: W. W. Norton, 2012. pp 1665.

Dickinson, Emily. “202.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 8th ed. Vol. B. New York: W. W. Norton, 2012. pp 1666.

Dickinson, Emily. “340.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 8th ed. Vol. B. New York: W. W. Norton, 2012. pp 1673.

Dickinson, Emily. “479.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 8th ed. Vol. B. New York: W. W. Norton, 2012. pp 1683.

Dickinson, Emily. “591.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 8th ed. Vol. B. New York: W. W. Norton, 2012. pp 1685.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “The Poet.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 8th ed. Vol. B. New York: W. W. Norton, 2012. pp 296.

Palmer, John. "12 Poems of Emily Dickinson." Poems (12) Emily Dickinson. AllMusic, 2017. Web. 20 Mar. 2017.