Death and Immortality

1. Death and Immortality Emily Dickinson

2. Death • Remember cultural significance of C19th • Deathbed watches/vigils (from 13), highly ritualistic funerals, mementoes of the dying (hair in locket) part of society. • Vigils important as it was when the soul left the body to meet the redeemer • Only completely unknowable experience: tuberculosis & recurring theme of Dickinson’s poetry. She’s rarely sentimental about death • ‘few in Emily Dickinson’s world could put death out of mind, for it was daily and too near’ (Cynthia Griffin Wolff)

3. 591 I heard a fly buzz when I died • Spectacle/fascination with death element of Puritan society • Subversion of tone of mortuary poetry • Sense of shock, dislocation in 1st line creating an off-handed, detached response to death • Behaviour of death revealed direction of the afterlife • Instead of anticipation of ‘the last onset’ is the buzzing of a fly • Is the corruption of the body all that awaits us in death?

4. 280 I felt a funeral in my brain • Psychological death becomes merged with a physical death. • Ends with the mind’s final plunge into the abyss of despair • Funeral image of course suggests that something has died in her, emphasis on the emotional experience • Repetition of ‘treading’ and ‘beating’ suggests a relentless force acting upon the mind, something rhythmic and repetitious and numbing. • Alliteration of b suggests a thumping that becomes increasingly unbearable & oppression builds with image of feet pounding up and down. • Simile of the drum • Intense sounds: treading, beating, creaking, building up to synaesthetic description of space itself appearing ‘to toll’. At this point it appears as though there is nothing in the world but a tolling bell, and the speaker herself is reduced to an ear, isolated from everything but the deafening bell which fills her mind with one shattering tone. • Breaking of the plank = at the loss of reason, no rational thought left to support her at all. • Note breakdown in rhyme scheme as poem progresses • Left with the dash • Descent into despair. Madness?

5. 712 Because I could not stop for Death • Personification of death as a charming & courteous gentleman caller, note absence of fear, awe or dread. • C19th decorum requires a chaperone = Immortality • Metaphorical significance of schoolyard, fields of grain & the setting sun? • Sunset becomes the border between life & death • VOCABULARY • Gossamer a thin gauze or silk fabric (top) • Tippet a cape or short cloak (bottom UK) • Tulle a fine net fabric • Cornice plaster moulding at the top of a wall or building

6. 712 Because I could not stop for Death • Anaphoric repetition of ‘we passed’ is used to emphasise a boundary being crossed & the movement towards a place outside of time and change • Rhythm; despite being a poem about death the rhythm is pleasant, soothing & regular suggesting a peaceful effect • Look at first line of each stanza. Stanza 4? Change from a 4 stress to a 3 – into death? • Alliteration & the icy sounding I sounds create a damp and cold mood. Clearly not just a change in temperature • Stanza 5 return to iambic tetrameter but without casual and serene tone as they approach a fresh grave • Stanza 6 tense change; reflection suggesting speaker already dead, speaking from Eternity. • Dash- no closure • Does death lead to immortality? • No peaceful union after death with a divine being, just a sense of loss, of timeless separation from life