Much in the same way that the human experience is characterized by mood shifts of good and bad days, Emily Dickinson’s poetry captures the feelings of every day life, both mundane and fantastic; her poetry, brief in wording and starkly veiled in metaphor and symbolism, is both powerful in message and conveyance of emotion. When held up against one another, Dickinson’s ecstatic poems are the glaring white to her darker poems’ abysmal black.
Poem 1072, “Title divine – is mine,” is an example of Dickinson’s use of ecstasy. Even though the message of the poem seems to question the way in which women are dependent on men, its overall feel and mood is one of warmth and happiness. She refers to the colors gold and garnet (in the transformation of woman from garnet to gold); these hues are warm and evoke positive associations for most. Additionally, her choice in wording, referring to “divine,” “Empress,” “melody,” and “Victory,” also tend to evoke positive connotation.
When held up against Poem 1072, Poem 465 offers the converse to Poem 1072’s positive wording. In the first line of the poem, death is mentioned, setting the tone immediately and forcefully. Dickinson’s use of the terms “Stillness,” Storm,” “dry,” “willed my Keepsake – Signed away,” “blue,” and “failed” also help to convey the poem’s downtrodden nature. Ironically, although Heaven is mentioned, the poem is devoid of any sense of optimism.
Of Dickinson’s more excited and ecstatic poems, numbers 214, 214, and 528 all present themselves positively but with underlying concerns. Poem 249, “Wild Nights – Wild Nights” explores the poet’s desire to be with an unnamed person.
She tells of her heart having been successfully guided into the rivers of Eden, the essence of Paradise, as she longs for the comfort of her love. While a bit more obtuse in its message, Poem 214 nevertheless captures a mood of fantasy in nature. Readers will typically find the inclusion of butterflies, bussing bees, “Pearl,” and “endless summer days” pleasantly appealing. The most challenging to decipher, yet exciting poems is Poem 528. Its repetition of the term “Mine” adds a positive cadence to the mood of the poem, and most readers will equate such claim of ownership with positive feelings.
The aforementioned exciting and ecstatic poems look all the more positive when held up against Dickinson’s darker pieces, including Poems 280, 449, and 650. Poem 650 is a bleak, pessimistic work that offers little hope and begins and ends with the word “pain.”
It is short with few words, but the words used convey the timelessness and immortality of pain. The grim but playful Poem 449 depicts a conversation between two dead people, one who died for beauty and the other who died for “Truth.” While the topic is morbid, the conversation between the two is somewhat pleasant. Possibly one of Dickinson’s darkest poems, Poem 280 relays the narrator with a “funeral” occurring in her brain. The imagery is bland and stark, with droll drums beating, “Mourners” wandering about, and silence.
The ecstatic and dark poems mentioned contrast well against one another, making appreciation for the other more possible. Dickinson, with her skill in words, had a talent for evoking emotion with few words; what takes many writers hundreds of pages to express, Dickinson was able to do in a few lines. Much like life itself, the good and the bad cannot exist without each other in Dickinson’s poetry.