When we were discussing Dickinson’s death/marriage poem on Thursday, something that came up was the fact that Dickinson didn’t really seem to be scared of death, so her writing about being scared of death, either in itself, through the metaphor of marriage, or as a metaphor for marriage, didn’t seem to make sense. Yet, does it matter if Dickinson can personally relate to the poetry she is writing? Or is poetry, in general, more about creating spaces for individuals to relate to one another, regardless of how the poet themselves relates? This question interests me specifically when thinking about Dickinson because she did not seem to have any interest in publishing her works. The only way that her work was spread was directly to another person by herself in her letters, which seems like it would take away the possibility for relatability between people beyond Dickinson. Does this mean that we shouldn’t view Dickinson’s work as possibly being relatable in ways beyond her own experiences, or could her poetry still be viewed that way even if it wasn’t her intention?
2 thoughts on “The Importance of Dickinson’s Connection to her Work”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
I think about this often as a poet—it’s perhaps always a bit hard looking at historical poets, but with Dickinson, it feels different. The way she talked about writing and the blur between letter and poem makes me read a good portion of her poems as being spoken by her. Although, assuming the speaker is the poet is usually discouraged, but it still feels sorta correct to do that with her poetry. Idk. I’m gonna try and separate her from her poems more….(though, again, that feels a bit wrong)
I agree with Aaliyah — this sort of feels like a special case?
But, I would like to imagine that a large reason why we are reading her poems in a historical context is because we simultaneously learn about her and her life while reading. We look at her handwriting, read her letters, and look at the one and only portrait of her frequently enough that if she were walking down the street, I’d call for her. If we were to approach her poetry without all this information, I’d imagine our discussions — and possibly our interpretations — would be different.