Tag: #emily dickinson

About that author- Emily Dickinson

One of the most prominent 19th century poet, who sharpened her skill with self reflection and seclusion and made such a huge impact in literature

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson born in 1830, in Amherst, Massachusetts, U.S. her father Edward Dickinson was a Whig lawyer and her mother was a docile housekeeper. Her parents were loving but strict with their 3 children. So Emily and her siblings Austin and Lavinia got closer. The 2 sisters never got married and stayed at home.

Emily was a well behaved, docile little girl just like anyone would expect a 19th century girl to be like. All the siblings went to the same school where Emily excelled academically and was particularly good in music and composition and she also played the piano. 

Emily’s family was highly religious and she grew up with religious faith all around her household and it inspired some of her work as well. Contrary to her family’s beliefs, Emily herself was not particularly religious and was the only member from her family who did not join Amherst’s First Congregational Church.

Dickinson was introduced to the works of  William Wordsworth,  Ralph Waldo Emerson by one of her father’s friends Benjamin Franklin Newton, who she also talks about in one of her poems.

It was during her late teens when Dickinson started writing poetry consistently. And later her poems took the form of letters assorted with a little bit of humor which she sent to her brother and her friends, one of whom was married to Austin. She was especially close with Susan Gilbert, her brother’s wife and sent more than 300 letters to her. Susan was very supportive of Dickinson’s work and was a very dear friend.

Her poems also possessed a sense of alienation and seclusion as she faced loss of friends in her life. 

As time passed Emily withdrew to herself and became isolated from the outside world. This was because of her mother’s illness and someone had to stay with her at all times. During this time she found comfort in reading and writing. In 1858, she started rewriting her previously written poems. Between 1858 and 1865 she wrote around 800 poems, which no one was aware of until after her death. These are the works that Dickinson is most famous for.

Dickinson’s work possessed a certain melancholy to it, the kind that can also be seen in Sylvia Plath’s work, which shows that Plath was inspired by Dickinson. Her poems mostly revolved around death, which for some weird reason she seemed aggressive, self reflection and immortality. Her poems have been punctuated with dashes that critics are still not sure as to why they were used by the poet.

The last few years of Emily’s life were extremely tough for the Dickinsons; one death followed another. In an 1884 poem she wrote “The Dyings have been too deep for me, and before I could raise my Heart from one, another has come.” In 1886 she died, her physician gave the cause of her death as Bright’s disease. Before her death she asked her sister Lavinia to burn all her poems. Lavinia found 1800 poems after her sister’s death. Her first volume of poems was published four years after her death and Thomas H. Johnson published Dickinson’s Complete Poems in 1955.   

‘Hope is the Thing with Feathers’ by Emily Dickinson.

What do you call that which assures you that everything will be fine? What is that makes us believe in a better tomorrow? What is that which lifts us out of our difficulties? The answer is hope. In this poem ‘Hope is the Thing with Feathers’, the poet Emily Dickinson praises hope and brings out its importance.

Hope is an abstract feeling and the poet gives this abstract feeling a shape of a bird. It sits on our soul and belts out tunes. These wordless tunes never cease. Hope doesn’t utter words of consolation and promises. It stands there supporting us, lending us strength by its tunes and ceaselessly does this routine.  

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –

That perches in the soul –

And sings the tune without the words –

And never stops – at all –

Of all the Gales present in the world, hope sings the sweetest tunes. Their sweet tunes make us forget our bitter experiences. They remind us of happy moments awaiting us.  Though the storm (our hardships and hurdles) snubs this little bird, it never leaves. During the hours of storms, hope gives us the warmth to survive the bitter coldness. It is really a wonder how this little bird (hope) keeps us together. 

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –

And sore must be the storm –

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm –

Hope never leaves us even in our hardships. The ‘chillest land’ and ‘strangest Sea’ refer to our struggles in life. Even at this stage, hope gives everything it can to us and asks nothing in return. Hope pours itself into its songs and lends us a will to challenge our problems. It is to be noted that ‘ “Hope” is the thing with feathers-’. The hope which can fly away anytime leaving us to our problems never does so. Rather it stands by our side and guides us through our darkest hours.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land –

And on the strangest Sea –

Yet – never – in Extremity,

It asked a crumb – of me.

The poetess uses a poetic technique called enjambment in this poem. Enjambment is used to carry an idea from one stanza to another without any pause. Here, the poetess carries the idea of Hope singing to the next stanza by saying it sings sweet. 

It is an interesting study to know how this poem contrasts the poem ‘Hope’ by Charlotte Bronte. She considers hope as a ‘timid friend’ and as being indifferent to the poet’s struggle. Thus, the two poetesses view hope in a different light.