Essay about Emily Dickinson's Use of Humor and Irony

“Success is counted sweetest, by those who ne’er succeed.” -Emily Dickinson. When Dickinson speaks of the pain of failure and the satisfaction of victory, she speaks from experience. The hermit-like poet wrote nearly 2,000 poems by the time she died at 55. Emily Dickinson was a reserved poet and her work was largely unpopular during her life. She wrote under the topics of mortality and romance, however her works are always questioned of originality and for their vague nature.

Approaching Emily Dickinson’s poetry as one large body of work can be an intimidating and overwhelming task. There are obvious themes and images that recur throughout, but with such variation that seeking out any sense of intention or order can feel impossible. When the poems are viewed in the groupings Dickinson gave many of them, however, possible structures are easier to find. In Fascicle 17, for instance, Dickinson embarks upon a journey toward confidence in her own little world. She begins the fascicle writing about her fear of the natural universe, but invokes the unknowable and religious as a means of overcoming that fear throughout her life and ends with a contextualization of herself within

This provokes the readers' psyche of a lonesome, fragile individual, standing isolated at the end of an dark, treacherous road. This imagery is successfully used to illustrate a portrait of Dickinson, or even the individual reading the piece themselves, as they’re yearning for their new life, which right now is filled with darkness and sorrow. The poem is comprised of five stanzas, each consisting of four lines. The monotonous nature of the poem is nothing gleaming or eye catching, and this is purposely done for the conspicuous fact that sometimes, precious values and things you love are vaporized. With the abandonment of something important, the world does not stop revolving around you and seemingly mold itself for you. It will continue to revolve in the same way it always has for four and half billion years, but now only seeming to be filled with darkness, difficulty and

The Belle of Amherst, The Woman in White, or The Most Paradoxical of Poets…who can say which pseudonym is most becoming of the late great Emily Dickinson. By virtue of the multitudinous biographical literary works, moreover the wondrous intimacy of Dickinson’s poetry, one could surmise that as readers we comprehend her entirely: yet the most prevalent experience borne from reading Emily’s work, especially if her poems are read successively, is that we come away feeling as though we know nothing at all. Like no author before her and very few after her, Emily Dickinson divulges her hearts hidden secrets while recording what is inexorably one of the most conscientious explorations of the human consciousness ever attempted. Dickinson is known posthumously for her unusual use of form and syntax, but it was her pervasive themes of immortality, death, and madness in her poems that would canonize her as an indelible American character.

Emily Dickinson was one of the many famous American poets whose work was published in the 19th century. Her writing style was seen as unconventional due to her use of “dashes and syntactical fragments”(81), which was later edited out by her original publishers. These fragmented statements and dashes were added to give emphasis to certain lines and subjects to get her point across. Even though Emily Dickinson was thought to be a recluse, she wrote descriptive, moving poems on death, religion, and love. Her poems continue to create gripping discussions among scholars on the meaning behind her poems.

The language present in Emily Dickinson’s poetry is at times unclear, sometimes ungrammatical and can be found to be disjunctive. Dickinson wrote in distinct brevity, irregular grammar, peculiar punctuation and hand picked diction. Her poems were written in a circular manner, where she took the reader to one place and them swept them back to the beginning always relating one metaphor to the next. Dickinson was an intimate person throughout her life, and her poems reflect that lifestyle. Like her poems, she was never quite figured out. Dickinson wrote not for the audience to understand but for her own self

The modernist period, stretching from the late 19th century to approximately 1960, is a very distinct phase in the progression of American literature, employing the use of novel literary techniques which stray away from the traditional literary styles observed in the time preceding the period. Modernist writers explore new styles themes, and content in their compositions, encompassing issues ranging from race (Kate Chopin) to gender (H.D.) to sexuality (James Baldwin), as well as many others. The Modernist movement, however novel and unique, did not develop spontaneously. A few writers leading up to the movement exhibit obvious modernist views in their writing. These include male writers Ralph

Dickinson’s letter is to the world, which ignores her, tells of Nature’s message about her works, and asks the world to judge them kindly. However, since this most likely was not actually written for people to read, it is Emily’s own acceptance of her work, written only for herself. This emotional plea with herself helps the readers see her dedication and passion for her writing. This letter can also be seen as Dickinson’s acceptance of rejection, when a few of her poems were submitted for publishing, and denied. She was confident enough to know that her poetry was incredible, and that men involved in publishing were too closed minded to allow her work to be printed. Dickinson is creatively able to place two different meanings into one poem, depending on how the reader choices to perceive it. By intertwining the idea of nature into her poem, while refereeing to it as something else, her abstract meanings can be taken at different levels.

Emily Dickinson was a writer that had a morbid, yet beautiful way of expressing her thoughts. It takes many times to read her work and finally grasp some of what she means. Her poems leave the reader questioning and wondering why exactly a certain stanza was written that way. Dickinson wrote about death and made it seem as though she knew what it was really like, those very last moments of life. Then on the other hand, she wrote about happy experiences in life, sexual ones, and some that make insane thoughts seem so sane. Emily Dickinson used various ways of expressing her ideas of specific moments in life whether it be in dark poems with beautiful meanings, or refreshing poems that are uplifting.

Publication remained a considerable conflict throughout her writing. A publisher for her writing was never easily arranged. She befriended Samuel Bowles, the editor of the Republican and for four years sent him poems and letters for publication. Because Bowles did not comprehend Dickinson’s poems only two were published, and even those were published anonymously. Both poems were heavily edited and given titles that she had not given or was not aware of. Only five other poems were published in her lifetime, each altered by editors.

Emily Dickinson’s reclusive life was arguably a result of her proposed bi-polar disorder. This life and disorder unduly influenced the themes of her poetry. She chose not to associate herself with society and volumes of her poems, published posthumously, examine this idea as well as the themes of nature and death. The clearest examples of these themes are presented in the following analysis of just of few of her

     Emily Dickinson is one of the most famous authors in American History, and a good amount of that can be attributed to her uniqueness in writing. In Emily Dickinson's poem 'Because I could not stop for Death,' she characterizes her overarching theme of Death differently than it is usually described through the poetic devices of irony, imagery, symbolism, and word choice.

Emily Dickinson was an exceptional writer through the mid-late 1800’s. She never published any of her writings and it wasn’t until after her death that they were even discovered. The complexity of understanding her poems is made prevalent because of the fact that she, the author, cannot expound on what her writing meant. This causes others to have to speculate and decide for themselves the meaning of any of her poems. There are several ways that people can interpret Emily Dickinson’s poems; readers often give their opinion on which of her poems present human understanding as something boundless and unlimited or something small and limited, and people always speculate Dickinson’s view of the individual self.

In her adolescent years, Dickinson didn’t spend a lot of time in school. She attended Amherst Academy for a short period of time. She was a very intelligent student. She later attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary. She made a few friends, but not many. This is also the time she began writing. Before Dickinson departed from Amherst Academy, she had been influenced by a book of poetry by Ralph Waldo Emerson. She had other influences such as her principle at Amherst, Leonard Humphrey. As a writer, her work escalated when her poems were published in their original structure. She is mostly known for her new way of writing, which was short, but it was very passionate. What she mostly wrote about was her feelings and she was brutally sincere, but she also kept actual poetry intact. Dickinson’s writing was different from other poets’ writings because she didn’t formulate her writing. She wrote what was on her mind

I am going out on the doorstep, to get you some new—green grass—I shall pick it down in the corner, where you and I used to sit, and have long fancies. And perhaps the dear little grasses were growing all the while—and perhaps they heard what we said, but they can't tell!