American Renaissance & American Romanticism
Emily
Dickinson, summary of subjects and styles
*The
genre of Dickinson’s poetry is “lyric
poetry.” (This term is also
applicable to Poe, Whitman, and others.)
“Lyric:
The Greeks defined a lyric as a song to be sung to the accompaniment of a lyre (lyra).
The words to a popular song are still known as "the lyrics, but
students of literature also use the term loosely to describe a particular kind
of poem distinct from narrative or dramatic verse. A lyric is usually fairly short . . . and it usually
expresses the feelings and thoughts of a single speaker (not necessarily the
poet himself) in a personal and
subjective fashion. (A Dictionary of
Literary Terms)
“Lyric:
A brief subjective poem strongly marked by imagination, melody, and emotion, and
creating for the reader a single, unified impression. . . .
No longer primarily designed to be sung to an accompaniment, the lyric
nevertheless is essentially melodic since the melody may be secured by a variety
of rhythm patterns and may be expressed either in rhymed or unrhymed verses.
Subjectivity, too, is an important element of a form which is the
personal expression of personal emotion imaginatively phrased.
It partakes, in certain high examples, of the quality of ecstasy.” (A
Handbook to Literature)
The
most consistent quality of Dickinson's style is that, like her idea of
God (or Truth or Whatever), it refuses to be pinned down or "reduced." What is true in
one place may not be true in another. Some terms that may apply to this quality
are “ephemeral,” “evanescent,” or
“mercurial.” (Compare
Hawthorne.) These terms should not diminish her high seriousness. Her poetry continues to delight by consistently surprising
the reader and by always evading a simple, reductive conclusion.
SUBJECTS
-
confrontation with death
-
mystical vision
-
sexual union
-
nature as symbol of spirit
-
intrusion of the infinite into everyday life (#443)
-
settings: garden, household, visions from window, church, tomb or coffin
STYLE
“micro”
or smaller-scale elements:
·
paradoxical
combinations of abstract/concrete figures
or phrases; odd juxtapositions of differing dynamics or dimensions of thought;
e. g., #315 "fainter hammers"; #341 "quartz contentment,"
"hour of lead"
·
sudden
shifts of identity or metaphor--e.g.
#49 "Burglar! Banker--Father!"; #328, last two stanzas: "feathers
. . . rowed . . . Oars . . . Butterflies"
·
synesthesia
(one sense
interpreted in terms of another, as in hearing colors or seeing tastes): e. g.,
#1463, "Resonance of Emerald"
·
Personification
of nature/god--#315 "He fumbles at your Soul"; #986 "you may have
met Him [A narrow Fellow in the Grass]"
·
“Gothic”
tones or stylings may be associated with Dickinson’s “legend” and
with her subject matter, but she wouldn’t typically be called a gothic writer.
“macro”
or larger-scale structures:
·
4-line
stanzas or quatrains—sources
may be church hymns as well as traditional English ballad forms
·
opportunistic
rhymes
(conclusion of 341), but more often "slant
rhymes," "half rhymes," "off rhymes"
#303,
2nd stanza: "pausing/kneeling; Gate/Mat"; 3d stanza:
"One/Stone";
#712:
"away/Civility"; "Ring/Grain/Sun";
·
dashes—variously
supposed to represent changes in rhythm, pauses, or beats, but no final or
inclusive answer; the dash does whatever it does in one place, which may or may
not be the same function in the next place.
·
definite
beginning, open ending—Dickinson’s
poems often begin with quite definite images and tightly organized syntax (or
sentence forms). However, as the poems progress, they frequently “open up”
in both style and subject. Images become less precise and more suggestive.
Syntax, phrasing, and punctuation become freer or sketchier (often with more
dashes). #280, #341, #465,
One
sub-genre of Dickinson’s lyrics are her “riddle
poems,” in which an object is described without being directly named.
This ancient form derives from Anglo-Saxon poetry
Examples
in Dickinson’s poetry:
#219
(sunset)
#311
(snow)
#585
(train)
#986
(snake)
#1463
(hummingbird)
Two
examples of Anglo-Saxon riddle poems
(These
are translations of riddle poems written in Old English or Anglo-Saxon in
perhaps the 6th or 7th centuries AD/CE.)
**************************************************************
I
am greater than this world,
less
than the worm, brighter than the moon,
swifter
than the sun. The seas, all the
waters are
in
my embraces and the bosom of the earth,
the
green plains. I touch the depths,
descend
to hell, over-reach the heavens,
the
native land of glory, reach widely
throughout
the land of angels, fill the earth,
all
the earth and sea streams,
by
myself. Say what I am called.
(answer:
creation)
From
Gregory K. Jember, trans. The Old English
Riddles: A New Translation. Denver,
CO: Society for New Language Study, 1976, p. 38.
********************************************************************
Silent
is my garment when I tread the earth
or
dwell in the towns or stir the waters.
Sometimes
my trappings lift me up over
the
habitations of heroes and this high air,
and
the might of the welkin bears me afar
above
mankind. Then my adornments
resound
in son and sing aloud
with
clear melody—when I do not rest
on
land or water, a moving spirit.
(answer:
swan)
examples of Dickinson's riddle poems
It sifts from Leaden Sieves --