Spirituality, Nature, and Death in the Poems Of Emily Dickinson

Religion

Spiritual matters take a central place in Emily Dickinson's highly introspective poems, which are more concerned with the internal world of the human spirit than they are with the external world of commerce, politics, and social interactions. The "soul" is a recurrent theme in Dickinson's verse, frequently personified, from the aloof, goddess-like figure dismissive of the external world ("The Soul Selects Her Own Society") to the excitable creature that fizzes with energy like a bee or a bomb ("The Soul Has Bandaged Moments") as Dickinson charts the vacillations of the human spirit between despair and ecstasy. (Wolosky, 77)

Dickinson's explorations of the spirit are often metaphysical rather than religious in tone, and they tend to emphasize a rational, scientific approach. Many of her first lines are grandly assertive, articulating definitions and conclusions about the nature of humanity and one's place in the universe as if presenting scientific theory ("After great pain, a formal feeling comes"; "This World is not a conclusion"; "It was not Death, for I stood up"). At times, Dickinson draws on Darwinian theory to comprehend what happens to the spirit after death, positing in "This World is not a conclusion" that in death we evolve into a new kind of "species."

Hesitation to commit to a specific spiritual path is palpable in Dickinson's idiosyncratic indecisive use of the line; the heavy use of dashes and incomplete phrasings suggests that the thoughts and assertions conveyed are provisional and open to revision, mimicking the processes of endless rumination made by Dickinson's speakers. Her Calvinist heritage is satirized in poems such as "Safe in their Alabaster Chambers," which criticizes the apparent hypocrisy of the Puritan elite who preach the virtues of austerity and restraint while requiring their tombs to be luxuriously crafted from satin and marble. God's existence and the idea of a Christian afterlife are treated with some skepticism in this poem, where the only life that continues is that of the sweeping march of earthly events. In "Those—dying then," the place for Christian souls on the right hand side of God is said to have vanished; God's right hand has been amputated, declares the speaker. But though skeptical of Christian belief, there is an emphasis on the importance of spiritual belief, however flawed—better to follow the deceptive light of a will o' the wisp (ignisfatuus, which literally translates as "foolish fire"), counsels the poem, than no light (illume) at all. (Barnstone, 15)

Nature

Nature is as recurrent a theme as death in Emily Dickinson's poetry, characterized as an insistent force which cannot be ignored. Its elements are frequently personified, often as members of a tightly knit community known to the speaker ("A Narrow Fellow in the Grass") who impose themselves regardless of their welcome. The wind is a tired man who stops by to visit a speaker's "Residence within," or consciousness ("The Wind—tapped like a tired man"). The comings and goings of days, months, and seasons are presented as visitors to ...