Wednesday, May 31, 2017

How do the poems of Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost touch on themes of death and/or loss?

In Emily Dickinson's poetry, death, even when not explicitly mentioned, is a kind of subtext, an underlying idea existing below the surface thoughts being expressed.
"This is my letter to the world" is doubly poignant because it attests both to Dickinson's isolation, and to her wish to be appreciated and loved by the outside world: "Sweet countrymen, judge tenderly of me!" Yet in this poem, she is anticipating her own death. The finality of the opening statement, that the world "never wrote to me," means that it never will write to her. And in asking that she be "judged tenderly," she can only mean after she is gone. Though it's open to debate, the "unseen hands," to whom Nature's message is committed, are the hands of those future generations, after her death, who will see the beauty in her work that remains hidden from the eyes of the present world.
In "Ample make this bed," Dickinson again does not mention death explicitly, but it is nevertheless more directly dealt with here than in "This is my letter." The bed, obviously, is a grave. But death, to Dickinson, is not something to be feared. Although she speaks again of "judgment," she also refers to it as "excellent and fair." And in spite of the apparent wait for Judgment Day, the second stanza suggests at least the wish that the peace of the grave will be eternal: "Let no sunrise' yellow noise / Interrupt this ground."
One of Dickinson's most famous poems is her most explicit one about death, "Because I could not stop for death." Here again, death is a friend, appearing to her like the suitor she never had, or the one she lost, now coming in his carriage to court her. She reviews those things from life she has lost: the image of the schoolyard and field, saying that centuries have now gone by, but they are like moments to her. There is regret at having left the living world, but a sense that death is better.
Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" arguably deals with death also, but only indirectly. The "lovely, dark and deep" woods beckoning to the speaker might represent the world of the dead. When he has his horse move on, saying "I have promises to keep / And miles to go before I sleep," he chooses to continue now with earthly life, instead of relinquishing himself to death. But death is still inviting, warm, and kind. If he did not recognize this, he would not have stopped by the woods to begin with. As with Dickinson, Frost makes a statement about the value of life on earth, and the peace and fulfillment of the grave.
In "The Death of the Hired Man," Frost depicts the end of a man's life as observed by others. Mary and Warren discuss the hired man, Silas, who is exhausted and has reappeared at their homestead, thinking he can still live and work, though he's finished. Death, when it is announced at the poem's end, is a blessing, and Frost seems to be saying this is what it will be for all of us.
Each of these poems by Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost treats death as a thing not to be feared. But there is, by both poets, a recognition of the value of life here. Both poets celebrate life but recognize the inevitability of death.

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