StudentShare
Contact Us
Sign In / Sign Up for FREE
Search
Go to advanced search...
Free

Emily Dickinson a unique voice - Essay Example

Cite this document
Summary
The sublimity of the natural world inspires the imagination of artists to soar high above ordinary daily goings-on. By stepping outside of human life,…
Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing
GRAB THE BEST PAPER94.9% of users find it useful
Emily Dickinson a unique voice
Read Text Preview

Extract of sample "Emily Dickinson a unique voice"

EMILY DICKINSON Romanticism has many complex aspects, but one of its most impressive elements is how it uses nature as a source of inspiration. The sublimity of the natural world inspires the imagination of artists to soar high above ordinary daily goings-on. By stepping outside of human life, a sort of poetic communion can take place between the artist or poet and the natural world. The poet can then bring this experience back to his reader. Emily Dickinson often accomplished this effect. She was a truly unique and romantic poet.

Many of Dickinsons poems are quite remarkable for the way in which the speaker steps out of herself and seems to go careening around the world. She becomes more of a life force than a person and can see and experience almost anything. She shows that even the smallest things around us—a grain of sand, a pismire, a cow—contain an enormous history and an enormous power. A mouse is capable of inspiring the awe of an entire religion (Blake 56). Most significantly, she seems to believe, like Whitman, that “the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery.

” This is a celebration of all that has gone into creating the world and how deeply it can inspire us—like the best romantic poetry. Emily Dickinson can also be seen to affirm some of these same themes in the poem LXVI, about a bee:Contending with the grass, Near kinsman to herself, For privilege of sod and sun, Sweet litigants for life.…………        Her public is the noon,      Her providence the sun, Her progress by the bee proclaimed In sovereign, swerveless tune.Once again nature is an enormous canvas which is all interlinked and inspires great beauty.

The bee is “kinsman” to the grass, and all the things of the world are “sweet litigants for life.” And on top of these sentiments, the bee is “sovereign.” These emphasis on nature shows how unique she is. Two important elements of romanticism are the individual versus society and a reliance on human emotion over cold rationality. Both of these principles can be seen in effect in Rousseau’s Confessions and Emily Dickinsons poetry (Knapp 102). Rousseau’s long autobiography Confessions constantly points out how different and apart he is from other people.

"I am not made like any of those I have seen; I venture to believe that I am not made like any of those who are in existence. If I am not better, at least I am different" (Rousseau 23). This is a central theme of romanticism. The person who lives truly, understanding himself and nature, in tune with his emotions, is a person apart. The romantic is often portrayed as alone and sensitive—either ostracized by others because of his uniqueness or choosing like a hermit to be free of the conformist and corrupting world of society.

This book also celebrates the power and centrality to life of emotion. He writes that, “If I had ever, a single time in my life, tasted all the delights of love in their fullness, I do not believe that my frail existence could have endured it; I should have died on the spot." This too is a vital aspect of romanticism, one which Emily Dickinson captures perfectly in her work.Work consultedBlake, Caesar R. (ed). The Recognition of Emily Dickinson: Selected Criticism Since 1890. Ed. Caesar R. Blake. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press., 1964.Farr, Judith.

The Gardens of Emily Dickinson. Cambridge, Massachusetts & London, England: Harvard University Press, 2005.Knapp, Bettina L. Emily Dickinson. New York: Continuum Publishing, 1989.Rousseau, Jean-Jacque. Confessions. London: Oxford, 1979.

Read More
Tags
Cite this document
  • APA
  • MLA
  • CHICAGO
(“Emily Dickinson a unique voice Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words”, n.d.)
Emily Dickinson a unique voice Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words. Retrieved from https://studentshare.org/miscellaneous/1572427-emily-dickinson-a-unique-voice
(Emily Dickinson a Unique Voice Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 Words)
Emily Dickinson a Unique Voice Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 Words. https://studentshare.org/miscellaneous/1572427-emily-dickinson-a-unique-voice.
“Emily Dickinson a Unique Voice Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 Words”, n.d. https://studentshare.org/miscellaneous/1572427-emily-dickinson-a-unique-voice.
  • Cited: 0 times

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF Emily Dickinson a unique voice

English: Emily Dickinsons Tell all the truth but tell it slant. Analysis

Her poems are highly original, and the voice of the quiet, reclusive poet is recognized as a unique and valuable contribution to American poetry.... emily dickinson's, eight line poem “Tell all the truth but tell it slant” is typical of her literary style: short, quirky and deceptively simple.... After a very brief introduction to the context of emily dickinson and her writings, this paper analyses the poem first in terms of its structure and style, and then in terms of its ideas and imagery....
2 Pages (500 words) Essay

Literary Response 1

The intensity and deepness around the themes of death, morbidity and God are three prominent themes in the poetry of Emily Dickinson that make her a unique poet.... emily dickinson emily dickinson, the American poet of the 19th century is known for her deep and profound poetry.... emily dickinson emily dickinson, the American poet of the 19th century is known for her deep and profound poetry.... Hence, another prominent voice that echoes characteristically in the works of emily dickinson is morbidity....
2 Pages (500 words) Essay

Walt Whitman and Emily Dickenson and their Americanism

Being writers of the twentieth century when Americanism doomed, the writers have used similar approaches, each pioneering his own unique writing style.... hellip; For instance, dickinson's poems are short and simple to understand while Whitman's are long and complex.... Walt Whitman and emily Dickenson and their Americanism It is through their art of writing that Walt Whitman and emily Dick have evidenced Americanism in their works....
4 Pages (1000 words) Research Paper

English Literature: Death and Poetry

This paper will analyse the theme of death in the creative works of John Donne, Dylan Thomas, and emily dickinson.... These authors use death as the main theme in their poems, but the way they treat death and the language/ literary elements they use turn their poems into unique representations of the complex death phenomenon....
4 Pages (1000 words) Essay

Textual Analysis of Emily Dickinsons Poem The Brain is wider than the Sky

Dickinson displays poetic prowess when using this unique voice to deliver her message in the poem.... hellip; emily dickinson's poem, The Brain is wider than the Sky, is unique because it considers these aspects.... Uniqueness in emily dickinson choice of structure and form in the entire poem is clear.... For example, in her first stanza, emily dickinson creates an internal rhyme that increases the musicality of her poem.... emily dickinson satisfies the psychoanalytic elements in her poem....
5 Pages (1250 words) Research Paper

Select 5 poems by Emily Dickinson and analyze them

emily dickinson (1830 – 1886), is one of most popular poets of the American Romantic Movement.... emily dickinson's poems demonstrate her unique themes, style and use of poetical elements.... ?? dickinson uses her characteristic, unusual dash-like punctuation.... dickinson uses the simile of the frog to represent a self-important public figure.... By directly addressing the reader and using the word “us,” dickinson establishes an immediate rapport and empathy with the reader and defiantly announces her self-identity outside social circles....
3 Pages (750 words) Essay

Analysis of the American Literature

Transcendentalism in Emerson's writings The Harvard formed and uniquely influenced 1830's Cambridge American Transcendentalist School brought new insight to a young country still struggling to find its voice, new ideas concerning; spirit, man, and nature.... These are: In Young Goodman Brown by Hawthorne's, Transcendentalism in Emerson's writings, Edgar Allan Poe gothic style of poetry, emily Dickson and Walt Whitman....
4 Pages (1000 words) Essay

An American Style

rdquo; (31-32) Though she was more oblique in her writings, the same is true for emily dickinson.... In the paper “An American Style” the author discusses how candor, individualism and an appreciation for the natural world shaped the American voice.... If the colonial period helped the burgeoning American nation to define itself, the American Renaissance defined the American voice for its people.... hellip; The author states that it is perhaps no surprise that the American voice should seek to distinguish itself from its former parent: “We had thrown off the political shackles of England; it would not do for us to be servile in our literature,” writes Nina Baym in her analysis of the development of American literature....
5 Pages (1250 words) Assignment
sponsored ads
We use cookies to create the best experience for you. Keep on browsing if you are OK with that, or find out how to manage cookies.
Contact Us