Reading the poems for next class, so many of the ones regarding death stuck out to me. I know Dickinson writes about death frequently, but here I especially noticed. Letter 448 is the one I keep coming back to. Throughout this poem, and many others, she talks a lot about tombs/graves in conjunction with death. I don’t know if this a “modern” thought, but I wonder if she views graves as the best form of burial (when thinking of cremation, donation, etc). Also, 448 mention nature alongside death, “Until the Moss had reached our lips.” I think there can be many connections of nature, death, and the natural here. Ok ok so overall I’m curious how other people view Dickinson with her death writings, and also how she includes nature with this topic ??
3 thoughts on “Dickinson, Death, Nature”
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Didn’t Dr. Scanlon mention in class that Dickinson saw being buried as being hugged/warmed by the earth after death? Or am I misremembering?? I recall something to that affect being mentioned.
I also seem to remember this, I think? Even if it wasn’t mentioned it definitely seems like something Dickinson would say.
I actually wrote about how she intertwines nature and death for my response 3! In going back and rereading some of her letters and other poems we’ve read after thinking about this connection, there are so many more links that I saw before. It makes sense considering how much she loved the natural world, and her draw to the cyclic nature of time. Death is also inherently a natural process, we cannot escape it, every living thing experiences it at some point so looking at it through the lens of nature seems fitting.