Emily Dickinson Poem 327

Dickinson is able to so effectively present the importance of sight because in 1864, she spent seven months in Boston undergoing eye treatment. In Poem 327, she appears to be reflecting on this experience, as well as exploring further possibilities, hence the use of the conditional tense. This is undoubtedly a poem of praise for vision, yet this is balanced by the solitary nature of the poem which creates a sense of pathos. Whilst traditionally women 's poetry was considered to be more polite, this is definitely not true of this poem, which uses raw, visceral imagery to emphasise the importance and power of sight.

Dickinson establishes three distinctive parts to the narrative; before the narrator 'got [her] eye put out '; after the event
When the narrator is first presented with the possibility of regaining her sight, she declares 'my Heart/ Would split, for size of me '. The forced cesura makes the reader pause, and the exclamatory quality of the syntax reflects the 'split ' and its release of energy and bountiful emotions. The repetition of 'mine ' suggests the narrator 's hunger for ownership of the images. If she owned them, she would be able to satisfy her need by looking at them whenever she desired. In the penultimate stanza, Dickinson uses dashes to isolate 'to look at when I like '. This is the climax of the poem and the isolation of this phrase highlights the magnificent phenomenon of sight. The narrator expresses her resignation to a life without sight 'So safer - guess… '. However the narrator does also seem to be aware of the benefits of remaining blind because whilst sight is presented as being incredible, it is also presented as dangerous 'Where other Creatures put their eyes- / Incautious - of the Sun
The narrator 's Romanticism is illuminated by her passion for and desire to hold on to the minutiae of the beauty of nature. This is evident from her description of 'The Motions of the Dipping Birds ' and 'The Morning 's Amber Road- '. The use of capital letters highlights the significance these images hold for the narrator and the detailed descriptions demonstrate that her mind 's eye can contain finer details alongside the vastness of the large features of nature, such as 'Meadows ' and 'Mountains '. Dickinson uses hyperbolae 'my Heart/ Would split '; 'The News would strike me dead ' to portray the intensity of the narrator 's emotional experience. One of Dickinson 's contemporaries, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, employs a similar hyperbolic technique to demonstrate her passions 'How do I love thee? Let me count the ways '. This is not the only parallel which can be drawn between the two poets; both show a similar confidence in being able to discuss the soul through poetry. Browning says 'My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight ', while for Dickinson, the issue of the soul appears not just in this poem, but is several others too, such as Poem 280 and Poem