Transcendentalism and the Poetry of Emily Dickinson
The poetry of Emily Dickinson is the embodiment of transcendentalism. It is both pondering and appreciative of human nature and the world in which human nature exists. In her poetry, Dickinson exhibits the questioning spirit characteristic to the spiritual hunger of the era during which she lived and expresses her curiosity concerning many of the cornerstones of the human experience. In one of her poems, Dickinson proclaimed that she “saw New Englandly.” She possessed a vision shaped by her “Puritan heritage and Yankee background” and this was evident through the speech and cadence of her poetry (McChesney, 1 of 21). However, her rigid New England tunnel vision is what inspired her ever questioning spirit which she explored through poetry. Constricted by her New England lifestyle in which women maintained the air of domesticity at all costs, Emily Dickinson experienced a vast expansion of insight that she was unable ignore and needed to express. She struggled with her abnormal resistance to domesticity, but such a struggle lead her on a journey in which she investigated the humane concepts of life, love, death, religion, nature, and the universe as a whole (McChesney, 2 of 21). According to Sandra McChesney, “Emily Dickinson spent her whole life investigating life itself.” Many literary analysts agree that although Dickinson led a sheltered life confined to a single room, she embraced her own vitality and was invigorated by the life that flowed through her veins. In her poem “To Be Alive – is Power” she blatantly states that being alive alone radiates a certain power and “existence in itself is omnipotence enough.” Furthermore, Dickinson believed that there was a specific purpose for the occurrence of each human existence according to her poem “Each Life Converges to Some Centre –”. In this poem, Dickinson “explores the relationship between the central life goal towards which each human being strives, and the tortuous uncertain process of striving
Cited: McChesney, Sandra. "A View from the Window: The Poetry of Emily Dickinson." Bloom 's Literature. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 5 Jan. 2014 http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&WID=103251&SID=5&iPin=B CED0 3&SingleRecord=True . Leiter, Sharon. ""Each Life converges to some Centre—"." Bloom 's Literature. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 5 Jan. 2014 . Dickinson, Emily. "I Measure Every Grief I meet ." n.pag. ShortPoems.org . Web. 5 Jan 2014. . Dickinson, Emily. The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Boston: Little, Brown, 1924; Bartleby.com, 2000. www.bartleby.com/113/.