Poetry of Emily Dickinson

Much of the myth of Emily Dickinson centers on the fact that she lived most of her life in one house, and the concept of home is central in her work and is also embodied with her ideas of love, love for family, love for nature, love for life. Dickinson's image of home is turned into an image of herself--her home is her world, and she has a perception of the architecture of the home that is akin to her perception of the architecture of the body. The home and the elements that make up the home, including its garrets, chambers, rooms, corridors, doorways, and windows, project the form of the poet's mind and bring the reader closer to Dickinson's evolving sense of "place," as person and poet. Other images as well objectify her inner life, including all of her major concerns--self, family, love, loneliness, madness, renunciation, nature, God, death, immortality, eternity, and poetry itself.

Dickinson suggests in her poetry that love is a pr

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ession of any object of value that is desired. Here, the poem is attentive to the human tendency for devaluing whatever is within reach, including love, and to cherish and desire whatever remains out of reach. Therefore, does that which has been achieved--in this case the lady and the love of the lady--not have its value lessened simply because it has been achieved? "In Winter in my Room" is an erotically symbolic work that is at once a graphic description of the power of sexual attraction and an analysis of the fear and revulsion that attraction may arouse. The imagery can be given a Freudian interpretation, and the allegorical form of the poem makes the poem a classic example of repressed desire. This is a poem about hunger and love, and the poem displays the poet's ambivalent attitudes about love. In the poem, we can see the use of the poet's own house and room as the site of her speculations. That room is often closed and shuttered against the cold, and so it is also dark: In Winter in my Room I came upon a Worm Pink lank and warm But as he was a worm And worms presume Not quite with him at home Secured him by a string To something neighboring And went along (p. 1670). The largest category of Dickins
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Approximate Word count = 1547
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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