Mackenzie Broughton

Research paper

Emily Dickinson was an American poet, born on December 10, 1830, and died May
15th, 1886. She was considered one of the greatest American poets of all time. However,
most of her poetry did not get published until after her death. During her lifetime, her
poetry was not very popular and critics often also verbally abused her work for not
conforming to the poetic and grammatical rules of her time period. Dickinson was
considered to be a loner and a poet who did not understand her time periods style of
writing. It wasn't until she was deceased that her writing was recognized and applauded at
a high caliber for her unique style.
Emily Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts. Growing up, she had a very
strict and well educated family. Her father was also very particular about the types of
literature that was allowed in the house and considered many of the things Emily wanted
to read to be inappropriate. Many people believed that it was because of him as to why
she chose to write the way she did. Dickinson started writing poetry during her teenage
years with a young and hopeful mindset. As time passed, she started to spend more and
more time indoors. When she turned 20, she started to seclude herself from the world
because she had many friends and mentors who had died and their passing weighed
heavily on her. She fell into depression shortly after these crises and this sparked her
writings on death. One of Dickinsons most famous poem is Because I Could Not Stop
for Death.
The poem Because I Could Not Stop for Death has been interpreted by many

people, one of them being Frank Bernhard from Buffalo State College. He reviewed the
poem and discussed the verbs of uncertainty and phrases of reversal in the poem. At the
start of the poem, he believes she is naive, she sees death as kind and gentlemanly,
readily getting into his journey to destinations unknown. She doesnt dress warm and
her gown is sheer with no luggage. She then realizes she is at the mercy of Death-she
cannot call on him. In the second reversal of her poem, Bernhard believes this section
attracts the most attention. The speaker "now conveys her feeling of being outside time
and change, for she corrects herself to say the sun passed them, as it of course does all
who are in the grave. Then the speaker, in correcting herself, may have come to
understand that whereas the sun, depicting circular time, will keep revolving, her own
journey is destined to come to an abrupt, irreversible halt. Her final temporal
adjustment, the resetting of her internal clock, the speaker comes to realize that in death,
as in a black hole (to use an anachronism), time is collapsed and compacted. With that
realization, her adaptation to the eternal is complete. (Because I could not stop for
death Frank, Bernhard)
Abbott Collamer, another prestigious commentator on Dickinsons from White River
Junction, Vermont. Collamer believes Dickinson is talking about a stone burial vault.
Collamer also believes the poem has aroused conflicting interpretations, he thought it was
difficult to interpret as well. Collamer believes death in this poem represents the funeral
director. Collamer states that the speaker in the poem, who is dead, has certainly put
away her labor and leisure to confront Death's "courtly civility." In his article, he explains
that we might take Immortality' at face value, but immortality is not a person; it is each
individual's concept of unending existence or lasting fame ,Collamer says. In

Collamers professional opinion, he states that once we see that Emily Dickinson is
talking about a stone burial vault, an image that expands the metaphoric power of the
poem, we can appreciate more fully related imagery in her poems. ( Dickinsons
Because I Could Not Stop For Death- Abbott, Collamer M.)
The next article I reviewed about the poem was by Mark Spencer from Southeastern
Oklahoma State University. Spencer says, Most of the various interpretations of
Dickinson's much-discussed poem seem to assume one significant feature of supposed
Christian belief in the afterlife, namely, that the soul at death immediately attains its
eternal state. He believes that in order to interpret the poem, you must read it from the
perspective of a delayed final reconciliation of the soul with God. He believes she got on
a carriage that stops for death and immortality, and that the heads on the horses pulling
the carriage are pointed toward eternity. He then goes on to say The centuries that feel
shorter than the Day indicate an awareness that most likely the end will not come soon,
but no matter how long the wait, it will seem as almost nothing to the deceased. Then
the swelling go the ground is supposed to be where the carriage stops at a house where
she will live until the final day. Spencer finally explains that their is no way in
determining Dickinson's personal beliefs regarding to the soul after death.( Dickinsons
Because I Could Not Stop For Death)
After doing the research on Emily Dickinson I believe she had a very hard life with a
lot of adversity. I learned a lot about her, but I found that it was sad that most of her life
she lived in isolation and did not receive the credit she deserved while she was on this
earth. Although her life was quite taxing and depressing, her situation made her into a
beautiful writer with skill and style beyond her years, and for that we should all be

grateful and learn to recognize talent when it is among us.

Works Cited

Abbott, Collamer M. "Dickinson's because I could Not Stop for Death." The
Explicator 58.3 (2000): 140-3. ProQuest. Web. 28 Apr. 2015.

Frank, Bernhard. "Dickinson's because I could Not Stop for Death--." The
Explicator 58.2 (2000): 82-3. ProQuest. Web. 28 Apr. 2015.

Spencer, Mark. "Dickinson's BECAUSE I COULD NOT STOP FOR DEATH." The
Explicator 65.2 (2007): 95-6. ProQuest. Web. 28 Apr. 2015.

http://www.egs.edu/library/emily-dickinson/biography/