Emily Dickinson - Theme of Love

Introduction Emily Dickinson’s poetry is classified by editors as poems about nature, love, death, religion and others. Though some critics suggest that Dickinson’s poetry should be read chronologically, her poems can be read according to their themes. Since she was the daughter of a preacher her poems are often about God and Christianity, and in some of her love poems it is not certain if she is expressing her love for an actual lover or her spirituality. However, at one point of her life the poet stopped going to church and started satirizing Christian beliefs. Also, Dickinson isolated herself and emphasized her isolation by dressing in white. Her seclusion is present as a motif in some love poems. The death of her father, and nephew, led to an absolute seclusion and these deaths were probably the reason for the darker tone in her later poetry. Biographers have tried to find the source of this passion and intensity that is found in Emily Dickinson’s poems but there is an enigma when it comes to her love life. They have wondered when and how she encounterd these lovers, was the love reciprocated and how strong the feelings were. Dickinson seemed to have several passionate relationships but it is a fact that she remained unmarried. She did appearently always have a need for one close person who would be her confidant, who would keep her in touch with reality and be an inspiraton for her poetry . In Emily Dickinson’s poetry love can cause an exilirating rush of passion, or leave her with a hollow sense of deprivation, sometimes she questions love, touches various subject matters such as the position of a woman in a man’s world, and, for a woman who did not experience the world to its fullest, she wrote with surprising perception and emotion love poetry which left a mark in the history of literature. I decided to analyse some poems in which Emily Dickinson wrote about love from these different stranding points.