Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson was raised in a traditional New England home in the mid 1800's. Her father along with the rest of the family had become Christians and she alone decided to rebel against hat and reject the Church. She like many of her contemporaries had rejected the traditional views in life and adopted the new transcendental outlook.Massachusetts, the state where Emily was born and raised in, before the transcendental period was the epicenter of religious practice. Founded by the puritans, the feeling of the avenging had never left the people. After all of the "Great Awakenings" and religious revivals the people of New England began to question the old ways. What used to be the focal point of all lives was now under speculation and often doubted. People began to search for new meanings in life. People like Emerson and Thoreau believed that answers lie in the individual. Emerson set the tone for the era when he said, "Who so would be a human, must be a non-conformist." Emily Dickinson believed and practiced this philosophy. When she was young she was brought up by a stern and austere father. In her childhood she was shy and already different from the others. Like all the Dickinson children, male or female, Emily was
not want to fall in love. She writes of parting, separation and loss. This is supported by the experiences she felt with Wadsworth and Otis P. Lord. Emily also saw the frightful part of nature, death was an extension of the natural order. Probably the most prominent theme in her writing is death. She took death in a relatively casual way when compared to the puritan beliefs that surrounded her life. Death to her is just the next logical step to life and compares it to a carriage ride, or many other common place happenings. Further on in the poem she goes on to ask if the scholar or "some wise man from the skies" knows where to find morning. It can be inferred that morning, something so common place and taken for granted, cannot be grasped by even the greatest so called minds.
Some common words found in the essay are:
Thoreau Emily, Otis Lord, Lord Individuality, Immortality Life, Emily Dickinson, God Wadsworth, Massachusetts Emily, Hunt Jackson, Sabbath Church, Emerson Thoreau, nature death, otis lord, religion individuality, individuality nature, life death, poem emily, emily dickinson, religion individuality nature, amherst academy,
Approximate Word count = 1075
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
|
