ON BECAUSE I COULD NOT STOP FOR DEATH

Abstract: Death and eternity are the major themes in most of Emily Dickinson's poems.“ Because I could not stop for death ”is one of her classic poems. Through the analysis, this essay clarifies infinite conceptions by the dialectical relationship between reality and imagination, the known and the unknown. And it tells what's eternity in Dickson's eyes.

　　Keywords: death, eternity, finite, infinite

　　Introduction

　　Emily Dickinson（1830-1886）, the American best-known female poet ，was one of the foremost authors in American literature. Emily Dickinson 's poems, as well as Walt Whitman's, were considered as a part of"American renaissance"; they were regarded as pioneers of imagism. Both of them rejected custom and received wisdom and experimented with poetic style. She however differs from Whitman in a variety of ways. For one thing, Whitman seems to keep his eye on society at large; Dickinson explores the inner life of the individual. Whereas Whitman is"national" in his outlook, Dickinson is"regional"

　　Emily Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, on December 10,1830. She lived almost her entire life in the same town (much of it in the same house), traveled infrequently, never married, and in her last years never left the grounds of her family. So she was called"vestal of Amherst". And yet despite this narrow —— some might say —— pathologically constricted-outward experience, she was an extremely intelligent, highly sensitive, and deeply passionate person who throughout her adult life wrote poems (add up to around 2000 ) that were startlingly original in both content and technique, poems that would profoundly influence several generations of American poets and that would win her a secure position as one of the greatest poets that America has ever produced.

　　Dickinson's simply constructed yet intensely felt, acutely intellectual writings take as their subject issues vital to humanity: the agonies and ecstasies of love, sexuality, the unfathomable nature of death, the horrors of war, God and religious belief, the importance of humor, and musings on the significance of literature, music, and art.

　　Emily Dickinson enjoys the King James Version of the Bible, as well as authors such as English WRTERS William Shakespeare, John Milton, Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, George Eliot, and Thomas Carlyle. Dickinson's early style shows the strong influence of William Shakespeare, Barrett Browning, Scottish poet Robert Browning, and English poets John Keats and George Herbert. And Dickinson read Emerson appreciatively, who became a pervasive and, in a sense, formative influence over her. As George F. Whicher notes,"Her sole function was to test the Transcendentalist ethic in its application to the inner life".

　　1“death” in Emily Dickinson‘s poets

　　For as long as history has been recorded and probably for much longer, man has always been different idea of his own death. Even those of us who have accepted death graciously, have at least in some way, —— feared, dreaded, or attempted to delay its arrival. We have personified death——as an evildoer dressed in all black, its presence swoops down upon us and chokes the life from us as though it were some street murder with malicious intent. But in reality, we know that death is not the chaotic grim reaper of fairy tales and mythology. Rather than being a cruel and unfair prankster of evil, death is an unavoidable and natural part of life itself.

　　Death and immorality is the major theme in the largest portion of Emily Dickinson's poetry. Her preoccupation with these subjects amounted to an obsession so that about one third of her poems dwell on them. Dickinson's many friends died before her, and the fact that death seemed to occur often in the Amherst of the time added to her gloomy meditation. Dickinson's is not sheer depiction of death, but an emphatic one of relations between life and death, death and love, death and eternity. Death is a must-be-crossed bridge. She did not fear it, because the arrival in another world is only through the grave and the forgiveness from God is the only way to eternity.

　　2 analysis

　　Because I could Not Stop for Death

　　(1) Because I could not stop for Death,

　　(2) He kindly stopped for me;

　　(3) The carriage held but just ourselves

　　(4) And Immortality.

　　(5) We slowly drove, he knew no haste,

　　(6) And I had put away

　　(7) My labor, and my leisure too,

　　(8) For his civility.

　　(9) We passed the school where children played

　　(10) At wrestling in a ring;

　　(11) We passed the fields of gazing grain,

　　(12) We passed the setting sun.

　　(13) We paused before a house that seemed

　　(14) A swelling of the ground;

　　(15) The roof was scarcely visible,

　　(16) The cornice but a mound.

　　(17) Since then'tis centuries; but each

　　(18) Feels shorter than the day

　　(19) I first surmised the horses' heads

　　(20) Were toward eternity.

　　"Because I Could Not Stop for Death" (J712) maintains a serene tone throughout. In it, Emily Dickinson uses remembered images of the past to clarify infinite conceptions through the establishment of a dialectical relationship between reality and imagination, the known and the unknown. By viewing this relationship holistically and hierarchically ordering the stages of life to include death and eternity, Dickinson suggests the interconnected and mutually determined nature of the finite and infinite.

　　Death is indeed personified by Dickinson to a certain extent as an unavoidable conqueror who is hanging over us and around us, inescapable. The first line tells us exactly what we're reading about. There is no gradual build-up to the main point as is the case with the works of some other poets. Instead, there is merely a progression of explanation. Many years beyond the grave, the speaker portrays the placid process of her passing, in which Death is personified as he escorts Emily to the Carriage. During her slow ride she realizes that the ride will last for all eternity.

　　For eternity, the speaker recalls experiences that happened on earth centuries ago. In her recollection, she attempts to identify the eternal world by its relationship to temporal standards, as she states that"Centuries" (17) in eternity are"shorter than the [earthly] day" (18). Likewise, by anthropomorphizing Death as a kind and civil gentleman, the speaker particularizes Death's characteristics with favorable connotations. Similarly, the finite and infinite are amalgamated in the fourth stanza (1.12):

　　The Dews drew quivering and chill—— For only Gossamer, my Gown——My Tippett——only Tulle——(14-16)

　　In these lines the speaker's temporal existence, which allows her to quiver as she is chilled by the"Dew," merges with the spiritual universe, as the speaker is attired in a"Gown" and cape or"Tippet," made respectively of"Gossamer," a cobweb, and"Tulle," a kind of thin, open net-temporal coverings that suggest transparent, spiritual qualities.

　　By recalling specific stages of life on earth, the speaker not only settles her temporal past but also views these happenings from a higher awareness, both literally and figuratively. In a literal sense, for example, as the carriage gains altitude to make its heavenly approach, a house seems as"A Swelling of the Ground" (14). Exactly it refers to grave. Figuratively the poem may symbolize the three stages of life:"School, where Children strove" (9) may represent childhood;"Fields of Gazing Grain" (11), maturity; and"Setting Sun" (12) old age. Viewing the progression of these stages-life, to death, to eternity-as a continuum invests these isolated, often incomprehensible events with meaning. From her eternal perspective, the speaker comprehends that life, like the"Horses Heads" (19), leads"toward Eternity" (20).

　　Through her boundless amalgamation and progressive ordering of the temporal world with the spiritual universe, Dickinson dialectically shapes meaning from the limitations of life, allowing the reader momentarily to glimpse a universe in which the seemingly distinct and discontinuous stages of existence are holistically implicated and purposed.

　　3 conclusion

　　No one can delay or prevent death. Most people died unexpectedly, who are not ready to stop everything they have and want to do. Their relatives and their friends also are not ready to accept it. It seems that people only have finite time on earth. Before death arrives, we should fulfill dreams without regrets and should love the ones surrounding us. Emily Dickinson once wrote, after she came to know the life after death lies permanently in the beloved's memory, that the one who bestowed eternity on her she would send memory in return.

　　Note

　　1 9. played: the existing manuscript version of poem 712 reads"strove" (The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson, edited by R. W. Franklin in two volumes (Cambridge, Mass., and London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1981: I, 509-10; fascicle 23; PS 1541 A1 1981 ROBA).

　　10. Their lessons scarcely done: the existing manuscript version reads"At recess in the ring".

　　12. The existing manuscript version adds one stanza after this line:

　　Or rather He passed us.

　　The dews drew quivering and chill

　　For only gossamer, my gown,

　　My tippet, only tulle.

　　A tippet is a cape or scarf worn on the shoulders, and tulle is sheer silk material.

　　16. cornice: projecting mould that overhangs a roof or wall

　　but a mound: the existing manuscript version reads"in the ground".

　　17. but each: the existing manuscript version reads"and yet".

　　Bibliography

　　1. http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/dickn32c.html

　　2. http://longman.awl.com/kennedy/dickinson/biography.html#introduction

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