The death poetry of Emily Dickinson

Abstract

The topic of death is an important theme in the work of Emily Dickinson, one of America's greatest poets. Dickinson scholars debate whether her focus on death (one quarter of all her poems) is an unhealthy and morbid obsession, or, rather, a courageous recognition that life itself cannot be understood fully except from the vantage point of the grave (just as light cannot be fully appreciated without the recognition of its opposite, i.e., darkness). Following the latter view, Dickinson's penetrating insights into death are examined. Some of her best known death poems are presented and briefly discussed (reference is also made to many other Dickinson poems, and insights are also drawn from her many letters). Brief comparisons of Dickinson's views to certain philosophers (for example, Nietzsche) are made, in order to provide a wider context of exploration into these important themes. In the end, Dickinson contends that affirmation of life is impossible without an examination of death - the article therefore ends with her famous poem about that affirmation. © 1998, Baywood Publishing Co., Inc.