Emily Dickinson and Her Social Seclusion Essay

Dickinsons I Dwell in Possibility is one great example of how the poet transforms finite to infinite by the imaginative world of rime. Through the usance of parables, Dickinson has shown how domesticated images such as house, chambers, roof, doors and windows terminate be extended to infinite imaginations in the poetic world. The fairer class (line 2) serves as a metaphor for poetry and the Visitors (line 9) who argon the fairest may be a metaphor for the readers of poetry.The beginning(a) four lines compare poem and prose by saying poem is more superior (line 4) as it has more windows and doors call downing that poems are subject to more flexible interpretations. The second stanza talks of how this fairer house can be extended to nature such as Cedars (line 5) and the Sky (line 8). The closing stanza reveals writing poems as the speakers Occupation (line 10).She opens the world of poetry by the widening of her narrow hands, which serves as a metaphor for the act of writing. Wide and narrow form a pair of job while the repetition of fairness (fairer and fairest are utilise in the first and last stanza respectively) reiterates that poem is fairer than prose. Dickinson has portrayed the infinite possibilities of poetry through and through the use of domestic imagery from the roof of the house to the infinite sky and from the finite hands to the Paradise of poetry. This echoes what Wordsworth claims,Poets choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or discover them, throughout, as far as possible in a extract of language really used by imagination, and at the same time, to barf over them a certain coloring aspect whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual aspect. The loose syntax of the poem and the support use of dashes make added to the overall flexibility and the many possibilities the poem has I dwell in Possibility A fairer House than ProseMore many of Windows Superiorfor Doors Of Chambers as the Cedars Impregnable of Eye And for an Everlasting ceiling The Gambrels of the Sky Of Visitorsthe fairest For OccupationThis The spreading wide my narrow Hands To assemblage Paradise The myth of Dickinsons isolation Interestingly, Dickinsons loneliness from the caller and physical confinement in a house is well-known (yet likewise often exaggerated), contrary to the free and liberal world that is depicted in her poem.The use of the first-person singular pronoun I without other personal pronouns such as you in I Dwell in Possibility also seems to suggest she had no intention of gaining readership for this poem. Most of her poems were also only discovered afterward her death in 1886 by her young sister Lavinia. Hence, it may express that Dickinson could be writing just for her own pleasure. Nevertheless, it should also be observe that the extent of Dickinsons seclusion may be exaggerated as staying in the household was a common practice for women in the nineteenth century.As a matter of fact, Dickinson was non deprived of social life. Her family was the mainstay of the local community and their house was often used as a meeting place for distinguished visitors. According to Higginson, her mentor and literary critic, although Dickinson did olfaction awkward in some social situations, with her close friends and sisters she could easily bumble in innocent childlike humour.The fact that she wrote letters to her family, schoolmates and friends also shows she was not as socially secluded as it was claimed to be. Hence, her confinement in the domestic setting did not actually inhabit her from expressing her thoughts. In fact, it might gestate even helped her in surmounting her surroundings to achieve personal transcendence through poetry. The seemingly familiar household objects suddenly become unfamiliar low the magic of her narrow hands. Just like what most of the poets do,Dickinson had used some of the old and familiar terms in new slipway such that re aders (though not needs intended by Dickinson) inevitably have to take part in the active construction of meanings to interpret what severally of the unfamiliar terms means. So why would critics exaggerate Dickinsons seclusion? It has to do with their romantic fantasy of how a poet should look like sharp but arrogant, creative but reserved. It is the paradox that makes a poet a poet, the conundrum that makes a poem appealing, even though they may not necessarily be realistic.