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Emily Dickinson and Her Poem: My Life Closed Twice

Ni Wayan Desy Prema Asri


4A/1612021016
English Language Education, Language and Art Faculty
Ganesha University of Education
Singaraja, Indonesia
nwdpa.1998@gmail.com

Introduction

Poetry is one of the part of literature. Poetry can be seen as the simplest product of
literature. It is different with the other products of literature, such as drama or prose. Poetry only
has few sentences which divided into several lines, even it is possible if a poem consist only by
one sentence. Meanwhile, drama or prose need more sentences to create a story. Laurrence, P
(1982) stated “Poetry might be defined as a kind of language that says more and says it more
intensely than does ordinary language.” In other word, it means poetry speaks more than the
ordinary language and the readers need to understand well about what the poetry talks about.
Besides, Ollila, B and Jantas, J (2006, p.1) stated that “poetry is any kind of verbal or written
language that is structured rhythmically and is meant to tell a story, or express any kind of emotion,
idea, or state of being. Poetry is used to achieve this artistic expression in several ways.”

Poetry is well known for it simple form, but actually the form of the poem is not as simple
as it seems. Since poetry has few words with few lines, it might be seem impossible to speak more
than the ordinary language. But, poetry does it. That is the special point of poetry and it becomes
the hardest part for the reader as well. With the limited words, a poet should be able to speak all
their experiences or ideas. Therefore, poets are helped by several supporting parts, such as
denotative and connotative meaning, figurative languages with imagery, also musical devices that
make the poems become more beautiful. Those supporting parts must be understood well by the
readers in order to get the meaning of the poems.

Poetry already appeared since the Old English Period and at the time mostly the poems talk
about something religious or related with God. It developed well based on the era. Poetry also
developed well in other country, such as in America. There are some famous American poets, one
of them was Emily Dickinson. “Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born at the family's homestead in
Amherst, Massachusetts, on December 10, 1830, into a prominent, but not wealthy, family.
Dickinson's poems are unique for the era in which she wrote; they contain short lines, typically
lack titles, and often use slant rhyme as well as unconventional capitalization and punctuation.
Many of her poems deal with themes of death and immortality, two recurring topics in letters to
her friends.” (The World’s Poetry Archive (2012), p.1). My Life Closed Twice, one of her poems
had theme of death and immortality.

The discussion part will discuss about Emily Dickinson’s poem titled My Life Closed
Twice. This article chose the poem because the poem is one of the Emily Dickinson’s famous work
also there is a possibility that this poem is related to Emily Dickinson’s life. The discussion used
textual analysis which focused on some elements that the poem had. Those elements that will be
discussed are denotation and connotation meaning, figurative languages and the imagery, the
speaker, the audience, subject matter, situation, and meter.

Discussion

1. Denotation and Connotation Meaning of My Life Closed Twice

Poems must be has a meaning in it. Sometime, a poem can be consist of two different meaning.
Those meaning can be found literally or not. The meaning that can be found literally known well
as denotative meaning. Perrine, L (1982) stated that denotation meaning is the dictionary meaning
or the real meaning of a word. The other meaning that can be found is connotative meaning.
Connotative meaning cannot be found literally, the readers need to read the words more than once
to find the connotative meaning. Perrine, L (1982) stated that connotative meaning is the additional
meaning of a word besides the denotative meaning. Before analyzing the denotative and
connotative meaning of My Life Closed Twice, here the lines of My Life Closed Twice:

My Life Closed Twice

My life closed twice before its close;


It yet remains to see
If immortality unveil
A third event to me,
So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
As these that twice befell,
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell

Since denotative meaning can be found literally by reading the poem, the reader can find
some important words of the poem in the line that related with the title of the poem. There are
words life, closed, and immortality, also parting which seems important and need to be focused.
The first line says “My life closed twice before its close” literally the poet said that her life was
closed. Then, there is immortality in the third line and immortality is known well as part of life.
Also, there is parting in the seventh line and parting is known well as something that full of sadness.
If those words are combined to find the denotative meaning of the poem, the readers can conclude
that the poet was talking about something that related with sadness because her life was closed
twice. Therefore, the denotative meaning of this poem is sadness that felt by the poet.

Meanwhile, when the readers want to know about the connotative meaning of the poem,
the readers need to read the poem again. Then, the readers might find other meaning of the words
that already listed before. Also, if the readers know about one of Emily Dickinson’s biography
movie titled “A Quiet Passion” the readers can find the connotative meaning of this poem. First,
the word “life”. Literally life means something every living things have before their death.
Meanwhile, life also has some connotative meaning beside something that every living things have
before their death. Word “life” can be used to represents something very special for someone. Just
like how parents usually represents their children as their life. Therefore, word “life” here can be
used to represents something very important for the poet. Emily Dickinson’s biography movie
showed that Dickinson lost her parents before her death. Her father was the first who passed away,
then her mother passed away, and Emily Dickinson passed away after her mother. Then, the
readers can try to connect Emily Dickinson’s parents’ death with the connotative meaning of word
“life”. The word “life” can be represented Emily Dickinson’s parents. It is supported by the whole
first line “My life closed twice before its close” it says that her life closed twice, it becomes make
sense because literally life cannot closed twice, but if it uses the connotative meaning it is possible
if her life close twice because she lost her parents right before her death. Also, there is “parting”
and “heaven” also “hell” in the last three lines. “Parting”, “heaven”, and “hell” are known well as
something that related with death. Therefore, the connotative meaning of this poem is about death
that came to the poet’s family.

2. Figurative Language and Imagery of My Life Closed Twice

Since poems have limited space and limited words but unlimited meaning in it, poet need to
use words that can represents two or more things at once. A poet also need to make the words in
their poems look more beautiful than ordinary words. In order to do that, poets can use figurative
language and imagery to enrich the poems. Perrine, L (1982, p.56) stated that figurative language
is language that cannot be taken literally only. The readers need to find the meaning behind of the
language. There are three main types of figurative language: representation, comparative, and
contrast. Perrine, L (1982, p.46) also stated that imagery is the representation of something through
language that can be experienced by human’s five senses. Sometime, a poem is not fully use
figurative language or imagery, so it is a normal thing if readers cannot find any figurative
language or imagery in a poem.

My Life Closed Twice has some figurative languages and imageries in it. The first line,
“My life closed twice before its close” has paradox and symbol figurative language. Paradox is an
apparent contradiction that is nevertheless somehow true (Perrine, L (1982), p. 95). It says that the
poet’s life has been closed twice before its close. It has paradox because it seems impossible and
does not make sense if a life of a person could close twice before it is really closed meanwhile
human and every living things only have 1 life. But, it may be possible and make sense if the
reader can understand the context of the line. The word life in the first line might be has different
meaning beside human life. The other meaning of life has been already discussed at the previous
part and it makes there is a possibility that the poet was talking about her parents’ death, so it is
possible if “life” has been closed twice before it is really closed. That is mean the word life here
symbolized Emily Dickinson’s parents. Besides figurative language, this line also has imagery in
it. The imageries are hearing, physical movement, and sight. Those imageries can be found in word
“close”. Readers can get hearing imagery by the word close because when something is closed it
must be producing a sound, just like when someone close a door there will be a sound of closed
door. Also, when someone close something there must be a physical movement just like the
movement of human’s hands when it closes a door. Then, reader also can imagine that they see
how the life is closed just like how people usually see a door closed.
The second line, “It remains to see” has personification figurative language. It has
personification in it because this line personifies the life can see whether the immortality unveil
the third event to the speaker. As we know, life cannot see anything because life does not have
eyes. Meanwhile, if we want to see something we should have eyes and able to see something.
Besides personification, this line also has sight imagery. The word “see” give sight imagery to the
readers because the readers could imagine how they involve in this line and see whether the
immortality unveil the third event to the speaker.
The third line, “If immortality unveil” also has personification figurative language because
it personifies that immortality can unveil something. Meanwhile, when we want to unveil
something that is mean we should be able to speak or write as we can unveil something written or
spoken. But, immortality is not a living thing that can write or speak something. Besides, this line
also has hearing and sight imagery because when something unveil something spoken, the readers
can hear the voice of that thing or when something unveil something written, the readers can see
the written words from that thing.
The forth line, “A third event to me” has symbol figurative language because the word
event in it symbolizing another closed life as the third event for the speaker. Besides, this line has
sight, hearing, and physical movement imagery because the word event symbolizing the closed
life. It is same like the first line, when something is closed there must be a sound of that closed
thing and that sound can be heard. Also, there must be a physical movement to make that thing
closed and we can see how that thing is closed. Meanwhile, the fifth line “So huge, so hopeless to
conceive” has symbol figurative language because the words so huge and so hopeless represent
the third event that come to the speaker. It shows that the third event is huge and hopeless to
conceive. Besides, this line also has sight imagery because when we conceive something that is
mean we see the imagination in our mind.
The sixth line, “As these that twice befell” has simile figurative language because the word
as these give an explicit compares between the third event and the previous events that come to
the speaker. It compares that the third event is as huge as and as hopeless as the previous events.
Besides, this line also has sight imagery because when we compare two things or more that is mean
we need to see those things. If we are not able to see, we will not be able to compare those things.
The seventh line, “Parting is all we know of heaven” and the last line “And all we need of
hell” have symbol language figurative because both of those line talking about parting. Parting in
those line symbolizing that parting is all people know of heaven and all people need of hell.
Besides, this line also has internal sensation because when someone is facing a parting, he/she
must be feeling sad or happy when parting is come to him/her. And we all know that sad or happy
can be feel inside.

3. The speaker, audience, subject matter, situation, and meter of My Life Closed Twice

The speaker of the poem stands for the person who reads the poem. In order to analyze the
speaker of a poem, a reader cannot speculate that the speaker of the poem will always be the poet
of the poem. There are some possibilities that the speaker of the poem might be not the poet. As
we know, a poet make a poem based on their experiences or ideas and their experiences and ideas
might be came from other people. Therefore, the speaker of the poem can be the different people.
The previous parts already discussed about the meaning of this poem, both in denotative and
connotative also discussed about the figurative languages and the imageries. Those discussions
can help the readers to find out the speaker, audience, subject matter, also the situation of the poem.

My Life Closed Twice used “my” as its subject. Literally, the readers can conclude that the
speaker of the poem is “I” but it is too universal to conclude that the speaker is “I”. If the readers
read the poem literally, the readers can conclude that the speaker is Emily Dickinson herself.
Therefore, when analyzing the speaker of a poem, readers should not find it literally. Based on the
meaning of this poem that already discussed in preview part, the speaker of this poem can be
someone who thinking about death and feeling sad because of it. Emily Dickinson was not the
only one who has experienced parents’ death or sadness in her life, so it is possible if the speaker
of this poem is someone who also feel the same way as this poem.

When there is a speaker of this poem, there must be an audience or audiences of this poem.
Audience of the poem is someone or people who hear this poem. The audience is not always
someone out there, it can be the speaker themselves or something that appear around the speaker.
In order to find the audience, readers need to be the speaker of the poem, so readers can imagine
to whom they are talking to. Since the speaker already found as someone who feels sad because of
the death of people that very important to them, so there are some possibilities about the audience
of this poem. First possibility, the audience is the speaker themselves. The reason is based on the
result of analysis of the meaning of the poem. The result was this poem talks about the death of
the speaker’s important persons, so it is possible if the audience is the speaker themselves. The
speaker might talk to themselves and thinks about the story of their life, especially about their
sadness of losing their important persons. The second possibility, the audience is not a human but
God. It is possible if the speaker talks to God while thinking about their sadness of losing their
important persons.

Besides those elements, a poem must have a topic that written down in words. Based on
the analysis result of its meaning, this poem has death or immortality as its topic. It can be seen
from the sentences “my life closed twice before its close” and also “parting is all we know of
heaven and all we need of hell”. “Life closed”, “parting”, “heaven”, and “hell” are well known as
words that related to death or immortality. Since the topic of this poem is death or immortality, the
situation that appear when this poem is read must be related with sadness or gloomy. It is
impossible if a poem about death is read with happiness. Therefore, the situation of this poem is
sadness or gloomy.

The situation of this poem is not supported by the meaning or the topic of it, but it also
supported by the meter of this poem. The meter of poem will affect the tone of how the speaker
will read the poem. Here is the analysis of the meter and feet of My Life Closed Twice:

My life  closed twice  before  its closed;  Iambic, tetrameter


It yet  remains  to see  Iambic, trimeter
If immortality unveil  Anapest, dimeter
A third  event  to me,  Iambic, trimeter

So huge, so hope  less to conceive,  Iambic, trimeter


As these  that twice  befell,  Iambic, trimeter
Parting is  all we  know of  heaven,  Trochee, tetrameter
And all  we need  of hell  Iambic, trimeter

All the bold words are stressed words meanwhile the words that are not bold are unstressed words.
Based on the analysis, mostly the lines of My Life Closed Twice have Iambic trimeter as the meter.
The meter of this poem will affect the tone or the way how the speaker will deliver the poem. If
readers read the poem with iambic trimeter as the meter and the tone, the readers can feel the
sadness or the gloomy in this poem.

Conclusion

Poetry is one of the part of literature. Poetry can be claimed as the simplest product of
poetry compare to the other products of literature, such as drama or prose. Drama or prose need
many sentences in it to make a story line, meanwhile poetry only consist of some sentences which
divided into some lines. Even, it is possible if a poetry only consist of one sentence which divided
into some lines. Laurrence, P (1982) stated “Poetry might be defined as a kind of language that
says more and says it more intensely than does ordinary language.” Besides, Ollila, B and Jantas,
J (2006, p.1) stated that “poetry is any kind of verbal or written language that is structured
rhythmically and is meant to tell a story, or express any kind of emotion, idea, or state of being.
Poetry is used to achieve this artistic expression in several ways.”

There are some famous poets. Those famous poets are not from England only, but there
are also some famous American poets. One of those American poets was Emily Dickinson. “Emily
Elizabeth Dickinson was born at the family's homestead in Amherst, Massachusetts, on December
10, 1830, into a prominent, but not wealthy, family. Dickinson's poems are unique for the era in
which she wrote; they contain short lines, typically lack titles, and often use slant rhyme as well
as unconventional capitalization and punctuation. Many of her poems deal with themes of death
and immortality, two recurring topics in letters to her friends.” (The World’s Poetry Archive
(2012), p.1). One of her famous work is My Life Closed Twice. As the reference said that mostly
Emily Dickinson’s works are about immortality or death, one of her famous work titled “My Life
Closed Twice” talked about immortality and death.

“My Life Closed Twice” has one denotative meaning and one connotative meaning. Both
the denotative and connotative meaning of this poem can be found in word “life”. Literally, this
word has definition a something that every living things have before their death. Meanwhile, the
connotative definition of “life” usually used to represent something or someone that very important
for someone, just like when parents represent their children as their life. Connotatively, this poem
might talk about someone that really important for the poet or for someone else. Looking at Emily
Dickinson’s story life, she lost her parents first before her death, so it is possible if this poem talked
about her parents’ death.

This poem has some figurative languages and imageries in it. The first line has paradox
and symbol figurative language also hearing, physical movement, and sight imageries. The second
line has personification figurative language and sight imagery. The third line has personification
figurative language also sight and hearing imagery. The forth line has symbol figurative language
also sight, hearing and physical movement imagery. The fifth line has symbol figurative language
and sight imagery. The sixth line has simile figurative language and sight imagery. The seventh
and the last line has same figurative language that is symbol also same imagery that is internal
sensation.

The speaker of this poem is analyzed as someone that feels sad of the death of someone
that important for them. Meanwhile, the audience is analyzed as two different things. The first one
might be the speaker themselves since this poem talks about death. The speaker might talk to
themselves when they are thinking about their life story especially about the death that come to
their life. The second might be God. The speaker might talk to God when they feel sad about the
death that come to their important persons. The situation of this poem is gloomy or sadness because
the topic of this poem is death or immortality. Death is something that full of sadness for everyone.
Therefore, it is impossible if the situation of this poem is full of happiness. The meter of the poem
is iambic trimeter which also affect the tone or the way how the speaker deliver the poem. If the
speaker deliver this poem with iambic trimeter, the speaker can feel the sadness and the gloomy
inside this poem. Based on the result of the analysis, this poem talks about death and immortality
which is Emily Dickinson’s characteristic.

Bibliography

Ollila, Bernei and Joe Jantas. (2006). The Definition of Poetry. Available: Online. Web:
https://joejantas.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/the-definition-of-poetry1.pdf. Accessed
June 1, 2018

Perrine, Laurence. (1982) Sound and Sense an Introduction to Poetry. 6th edition. United States of
America. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
The World’s Poetry Archive. (2012). Emily Dickinson –Poems-. Available: Online. Web:
https://www.poemhunter.com/i/ebooks/pdf/emily_dickinson_2012_5.pdf. Accessed May
31, 2018

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