Emily Dickinson, One of America's Greatest Poets, Term Paper

Open, View, and/or
Download this Document

Total Length: 778 words ( 3 double-spaced pages)

Total Sources: 1+

Page 1 of 3

Emily Dickinson, one of America's greatest poets, is known for the musical simplicity and taut, unrelieved expression of emotional truth in poems that are stark, austere, compact and often small -- even though her body of work is immense. Many of her poems probe the source of spiritual despair -- and find within it a restorative, if stubborn, faith. In the poem, "I Never lost as much but twice" she stands before God and addresses Him as an individual who has lost everything, and "stood a beggar/Before the door of God!" And yet, apparently, it was God who brought her both happiness and sorrow, fulfillment and loss: his "Angels -- twice descending/Reimbursed my store," and yet she is lost again. With a certain ironic and rebellious humor that is one of Dickinson's stylistic hallmarks, she addresses God as both "Burglar! Banker!" He is the source of her wealth and her bankruptcy. Now she comes to Him asking for spiritual renewal and replenishment for, "I am poor once more!"

In "Success is counted sweetest" Dickinson suggest that those who never succeed are those who can most fully taste the nectar of imagined success; that those in need are the most attuned to that which they do not have. This poem is a stark and beautiful expression of anguish, without false comfort, but with a strange and vibrant energy that seems released from despair.

Stuck Writing Your "Emily Dickinson, One of America's Greatest Poets," Term Paper?

View All Our Example Emily Dickinson, One of America's Greatest Poets, Term Paper

Have A Custom Example Essay Written

This poem illustrates what Keats called "negative capability" -- a profound imaginative act that has at its source despair. "To comprehend a nectar/Requires sorest need," says Dickinson. Nobody who has been truly successful can even define Victory, but "he defeated -- dying/On whose forbidden ear/The distant strains of triumph/Burst agonized and clear!" In an odd way, grief is a form of faith, and not an annihilating event. Loss, lack, need and sorrow allow one to taste the sweetest nectar, the strains of triumph. The juxtaposition of "agonized and clear" is, in a microcosm, a clue to Dickinson's style: its absolute, crystalline, clipped clarity, and yet its potent, often agonized despair and even ecstasy. The two states seem to clash and yet merge in Dickinson's almost haiku-like intensity.

In "The difference between Despair" is the most remarkable of this set of three poems. For here one enters a kind of emptiness that is beyond the pain and joy….....

Show More ⇣

     Open the full completed essay and source list


OR

     Order a one-of-a-kind custom essay on this topic


sample essay writing service

Cite This Resource:

Latest APA Format (6th edition)

Copy Reference
"Emily Dickinson One Of America's Greatest Poets " (2002, December 04) Retrieved June 7, 2026, from
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/emily-dickinson-one-america-greatest-poets-140851

Latest MLA Format (8th edition)

Copy Reference
"Emily Dickinson One Of America's Greatest Poets " 04 December 2002. Web.7 June. 2026. <
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/emily-dickinson-one-america-greatest-poets-140851>

Latest Chicago Format (16th edition)

Copy Reference
"Emily Dickinson One Of America's Greatest Poets ", 04 December 2002, Accessed.7 June. 2026,
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/emily-dickinson-one-america-greatest-poets-140851
   

Open, View, and/or
Download this Document
order custom essay example