emily dickinson 320 analysis

Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Literature › Analysis of Emily Dickinson’s There’s a certain Slant of light

Analysis of Emily Dickinson’s There’s a certain Slant of light

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on July 5, 2020 • ( 0 )

When Mabel Loomis Todd published this poem in the 1890 Poems under the rubric of nature poems, she set a precedent that would be followed by editors for more than half a century. Todd may have seen it as a straightforward response to winter, similar to the Victorian nature poetry that was fashionable at the time; it was among several poems that led Todd to consider Dickinson’s work “Impressionist.” (Farr, Passion, 263). While it remains Dickinson’s most frequently anthologized landscape poem, critics now recognize that the poet was engaged in something very different from a word painting of nature in this poem. As she minutely explores the impact of a “certain Slant” of afternoon winter light, Dickinson reveals the way human emotions are affected by subtle physical perception, on a level beyond rational argument. The slant of light is its own argument, undeniable and unteachable.

The winter light of this poem “oppresses,” not as a passing mood, but as a permanent deformation of the soul, a knowledge that, once admitted, can never be removed. Speaking of Dickinson’s work as a whole, scholar Charles R. Anderson notes that “[s]he . . . separates the lesser pains that will heal from the greater pains that will not and chooses the latter as her special concern, noting with precision their qualities and above all their effects” (“Despair,” 10). Anderson considers Fr 320 Dickinson’s finest poem on “the protean condition of despair” (Ibid., 30). Dickinson’s astonishing feat in this poem is that she somehow transforms light, an image deeply embedded in the human psyche as an emblem of joy, hope, happiness, and salvation, into the “Seal” that signifies existential despair and locks it within the soul. Her certainty of the universality of this experience, reflected in her use of the plural “we,” has been justified by her many readers who have reacted to the poem with a shock of recognition.

The transformation begins in stanza 1, where Dickinson uses synesthesia, the merging of images dependent upon different senses, to evoke the light’s impact:

There’s a certain Slant of light, Winter Afternoons— That oppresses, like the Heft Of Cathedral Tunes—

By describing the emotional impact of the light (a visual image) as akin to the heft (a tactile image) of Cathedral tunes (an aural image), she forces the reader into unfamiliar associative territory, while deepening the sensual reality of the experience. Dickinson’s earliest editors did the poem a disservice by replacing Heft, a provincial word that, in her lexicon, denotes something ponderous that requires great effort to lift, with the neutral word weight. The oppressive, ponderous tunes belong not to a familiar “church,” but to an imposing “Cathedral,” evoking the quality of organ music resonating through great empty spaces. Farr suggests that Heft “conveys the difficulty of lifting up the heart, of believing in what cathedrals stand for.” She makes a further, intriguing connection between this poem and the paintings of cathedrals by the English painter John Constable, which were well-known in Dickinson’s region. Juxtaposed to Constable’s “cathedrals bathed in light” and his notion that painting was both poetry and prayer, this poem stands as an ironic antithesis ( Passion , 265).

For the very next words, “Heavenly Hurt” link the notions of ecstasy and pain. The phrase, with its repeated h sound (picking up the h of Heft ), has the breath release of a sigh. It can be read in several ways. On one level, the phrase implies that the hurt feels heavenly, sublime. Anderson relates it to, “the curious conjoining of ecstasy and despair that pervades most of her writing” (“Despair,” 32), comparing it to such lines as “A perfect—paralyzing Bliss—/ Contented as Despair—” (Fr 767). But another unavoidable connotation is that the hurt is sent by heaven. In what way? Is it that God wounds us? That the very longing for heaven hurts us? That we are hurt by the absence of heaven? That the hurt we feel is “heavenly” in the sense that it is unending, eternal? The fact that “We can find no scar” implies not only that the hurt is not physical but also that we cannot find an emotional scar, either. This wound is at the same time too subtle to be identified and limitless; it leaves no finite, visible scar. It pervades the psyche; for the place it has altered is “Where the Meanings, are—,” including the sense of whether life has any meaning at all. Cultural critic Barton Levi St. Armand characterizes the moment evoked in this poem as Dickinson’s “negative crisis conversion to unbelief” ( Culture, 239).

In the first line of stanza 3, “None may teach it—Any—,” it clearly refers to “Heavenly Hurt,” although it refers to the light, in stanzas 2 and 4. Dickinson’s first editors “smoothed out” the line to read “None may teach it anything.” Indeed, this seems the most likely meaning, although other interpretations are possible. Sharon Cameron sees it as an example of how Dickinson is “not choosing how particular words are to be read” and gives three different readings: (1) “None may teach it—[not] Any[one else]—”; (2) “None may teach it—Any[thing]” [it is not subject to alteration]; (3) “None may teach it—[to] Any[one else]—” (“Dickinson’s Fascicles,” 147).

Dickinson is describing a wound that cannot be influenced from outside and thus remains forever fixed. She might be talking about the kind of recalcitrance modern psychology associates with untreated neurotic syndromes. But, although many of Dickinson’s discoveries about the inner life anticipate what modern psychology would uncover, she lived within a different, more spiritual universe of reference. For her, the wound was the “Seal Despair,” a biblical reference to the seven seals of Revelations. Dickinson’s “eighth seal” belongs with the plagues that are sent to afflict mankind. By alluding to an apocalyptic, visionary text, Dickinson suggests a cosmic dimension to her experience. But her “vision” does not go beyond itself, that is, it leads to nothing but the psyche’s awareness of its own pain, as it endures the “imperial affliction” (a variant of “Heavenly Hurt”), whose source is the insubstantial “Air.” This is the poem’s central insight: the paradox that we live in the iron grasp of the ungraspable, so that our deepest convictions are shaped by subtleties of perception of which we are scarcely aware.

In the fourth stanza the poet returns to the surface level of a winter afternoon and draws the natural world into her sense of things, employing a “pathetic fallacy” (the poetic device that attributes human feelings to nature). The listening landscape and shadows holding their breath share the poet’s apprehension and awareness that something momentous is coming (“It” is once again the “certain Slant of Light”). The effect of these lines is to heighten the sense of mystery and suspense, which culminates in the poem’s stunning final image: “When it goes, ’tis like the Distance / On the look of Death—.” The absence of the “certain Slant of Light” is still a terrible presence. The image contains two attempts to place Death at a distance; it says both “it’s not Death but the look of death” and “it’s not the look of death but the distance on the look of death.” But the effect of such distancing is to bring death palpably close. It evokes both “the staring eyes of the dead [and] the awful ‘Distance’ between life and death. . . . The final and complete desolation of the landscape is the precise equivalent of that ‘internal difference’ which the action of the poem has brought about” (Anderson, 32).

FURTHER READING Charles R. Anderson, “Despair,” in Modern Critical Views, 28–33, Sharon Cameron, Lyric Time, 100–103, and “Dickinson’s Fascicles,” in Handbook, Grabher et al., eds., 147, 152–155; Judith Farr, Passion, 263–265; Joanne Feit Diehl, Romantic Imagination, 54–55; Barton Levi St. Armand, Emily Dickinson and Her Culture, 239.

Share this:

Categories: Literature

Tags: American Literature , Analysis of Emily Dickinson’s There’s a certain Slant of light , Analysis of There’s a certain Slant of light , Bibliography of Emily Dickinson’s There’s a certain Slant of light , Bibliography of There’s a certain Slant of light , Character Study of Emily Dickinson’s There’s a certain Slant of light , Character Study of There’s a certain Slant of light , Criticism of Emily Dickinson’s There’s a certain Slant of light , Criticism of There’s a certain Slant of light , Emily Dickinson , Emily Dickinson’s There’s a certain Slant of light , Essays of Emily Dickinson’s There’s a certain Slant of light , Essays of There’s a certain Slant of light , Literary Criticism , Literary Theory , Modernism , Notes of Emily Dickinson’s There’s a certain Slant of light , Notes of There’s a certain Slant of light , Plot of Emily Dickinson’s There’s a certain Slant of light , Plot of There’s a certain Slant of light , Poetry , Simple Analysis of Emily Dickinson’s There’s a certain Slant of light , Simple Analysis of There’s a certain Slant of light , Study Guides of Emily Dickinson’s There’s a certain Slant of light , Study Guides of There’s a certain Slant of light , Summary of Emily Dickinson’s There’s a certain Slant of light , Summary of There’s a certain Slant of light , Synopsis of Emily Dickinson’s There’s a certain Slant of light , Synopsis of There’s a certain Slant of light , Themes of Emily Dickinson’s There’s a certain Slant of light , Themes of There’s a certain Slant of light , There’s a certain Slant of light , Victorian Literature

Related Articles

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Emily Dickinson's Collected Poems

By emily dickinson, emily dickinson's collected poems summary and analysis of "there's a certain slant of light".

This poem focuses only on the effect of a certain kind of light that the speaker notices on winter afternoons. It quickly becomes clear that this is not going to be a poem extolling nature or winter light’s virtues, for this light “oppresses.”

What kind of oppression this is, exactly, is what the rest of the poem describes. In the first stanza it is described as “like the Heft/Of Cathedral Tunes –,“ which is not a common simile for something oppressive, making it clear that this light’s oppression is of a complicated nature.

This slant of light gives a “Heavenly Hurt” to the observer of it—that is, something that causes no outwardly visible damage (“We can find no scar”), but instead causes a mental or spiritual change (“But internal difference, / Where the Meanings, are –“).

This change cannot be induced through teaching (“None may teach it – Any –“); instead, it must be experienced. Though it is “Despair,” it is an “imperial affliction,” that is, a regal or royal affliction, that although painful, leads to an uplifting.

It is powerful enough that even nature notices its presence (“When it comes, the Landscape listens –“), and its departure allows for a preternatural understanding of death (“When it goes, ‘tis like the Distance / On the look of Death –“).

This poem very closely describes a fairly common theme of Dickinson’s—that of change as a fearful but illuminating process, both painful and essential. Here this awe of change is embodied in the “certain Slant of light” that becomes the place of departure for the transformation. This slant of light is oppressive, but this is no simple, purely negative oppression, it is instead oppressive like “the Heft/Of Cathedral Tunes –.”

The choice of “heft” here, instead of “weight,” which would actually have fit the rhyme scheme more closely, emphasizes the paradoxically uplifting aspect of this oppression, because while “weight” gives the reader solely an image of a downward force, “heft” implies a movement upward, albeit a difficult one. Thus while this slant of light is oppressive, while it creates difficulty for the speaker, the diction makes it clear that it is also uplifting.

This makes the surprising use of the simile of the “Cathedral Tunes” more understandable, as this seems to fit in with Dickinson’s views of religion. Faith, religion, and God are not easy for her; instead, they have a great difficulty, an oppressiveness, about them, and they cause “Heavenly hurt”—the importance of the adjective here is emphasized in the alliteration, and the flipped syntax of the line, opening with the direct object instead of the subject. This difficulty is, however, one that leads to greater understanding, and thus perhaps uplifts her, and in so doing takes her closer to God.

The importance of this painful transformation becomes even clearer in the third stanza. Here we see that its lessons cannot be taught, but must be lived; the emphasis of “Any” at the end of the first line of this stanza makes this very clear. And it is a “Seal of Despair – / An imperial affliction.” The close proximity of “Seal” and “imperial” make this experience into something that brings she who experiences it onto another level -- into a select, almost royal group of those marked by it.

This painful transformation has a better side to it implied throughout the poem, a certain uplifting that makes it worthwhile, that makes those who have lived through it members of a select club. However, the final stanza ends this transformation, and in so doing, leaves the day much closer to ending and the observer much closer to death, the word with which the poem itself closes. Yet death is balanced closely with life, as is shown by the fact that “death” rhymes with “breath,” an obvious symbol for life, earlier in the stanza, so even this death is not purely negative.

Emily Dickinson’s Collected Poems Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Emily Dickinson’s Collected Poems is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

How is Autumn picturized in Emily Dickinson’s nature poetry ?

It would be useful if you had a particular poem in mind.

A Thunderstorm

Did you have a question? If not... thank you for sharing.

Thunderstorm

Did you have a question about Dickinson's, A Thunderstorm ?

Study Guide for Emily Dickinson’s Collected Poems

Emily Dickinson's Collected Poems study guide contains a biography of Emily Dickinson, literature essays, a complete e-text, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Emily Dickinson's Collected Poems
• Emily Dickinson's Collected Poems Summary
• "Because I could not stop for Death" Video
• Character List

Essays for Emily Dickinson’s Collected Poems

Emily Dickinson's Collected Poems essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Emily Dickinson's poems.

• Faith Suspended
• Death: Triumph or Tragedy?
• The Vision of Heaven in Emily Dickinson's Poetry
• Emily Dickinson's Quest for Eternity
• The Source of Eroticism in Emily Dickinson's Wild Nights! Wild Nights!

Lesson Plan for Emily Dickinson’s Collected Poems

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to Emily Dickinson's Collected Poems
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• Emily Dickinson's Collected Poems Bibliography

E-Text of Emily Dickinson’s Collected Poems

Emily Dickinson's Collected Poems e-text contains the full text of Emily Dickinson's Collected Poems.

• PREFACE TO FIRST SERIES
• PREFACE TO SECOND SERIES
• PREFACE TO THIRD SERIES
• This is my letter to the world
• Part One: Life 1. Success is counted sweetest

Wikipedia Entries for Emily Dickinson’s Collected Poems

• Introduction
• Publication
• Modern influence and inspiration

There's a certain Slant of light by Emily Dickinson: Summary and Analysis

The slant gives the speaker a heavenly hurt. It is not physical suffering, but the suffering of the spirit. Man helplessly must endure this suffering, because the sources of suffering are so mysterious and powerful. The forces of nature which send affliction on man are so powerful that even landscape shudders at their approaching footsteps, and shadows suspend their breath with fear. When they go away, it is like a look of death going away from us.

The season, as well as the day, are suggestive of death. The slant of light on a winter day is endowed with some anthropomorphic qualities. It is oppressive like the sad cathedral tunes. Emily Dickinson's way of comparing the slant rays of the dying day to the weight of the cathedral tunes, reflects the meta-physical quality of her mind. Nature represented by the slant rays of the setting sun in winter, is a source of human suffering. Nature causes hurt to the human spirit. This clearly reflects Emily Dickinson's tragic view of life, and contours of her despair. The suffering caused by natural forces is not physical, but spiritual.

The word 'heavenly' suggests that the winter light is symbolic of God. It becomes the agent of God to inflict pain on the mind of the speaker. The hurt is not physical and therefore leaves no visible scar on the body. The hurt is internal. It is in the spirit of man where meanings of things lie. The air sends an imperial affliction. Again the speaker is at the receiving end. The word 'imperial' further attests Emily's use of 'air' to symbolize God. So, light and air, as agents of God send affliction and despair on the spirit of man. None can resist it and none can understand their ways. None can understand the ways of God and nature. They elude us. It is like the 'heavenly hurt'. It suggests that God is behind the acts of nature.

When the 'heavenly hurt' or the 'imperial affliction' comes, the landscape shudders with fear and shadows suspend their breath. When it goes, it makes little difference. It leaves the marks of death. When the light comes with its heavenly hurt, or when the air brings the imperial affliction, the rest of Nature, like the landscape and shadows, trembles with fear. When it goes, it is only like a look of death going a little farther from the speaker, that is, it still leaves the speaker pale with fear and marks of death left behind.

Cite this Page!

Shrestha, Roma. "There's a certain Slant of light by Emily Dickinson: Summary and Analysis." BachelorandMaster, 8 Jan. 2018, bachelorandmaster.com/britishandamericanpoetry/there-is-a-certain-slant-of-light-summary-analysis.html.

Related Topics

Much Madness is Divinest Sense: Analysis

Renunciation: Summary and Analysis

Because I could not Stop for Death: Analysis

I Heard a Fly Buzz: Summary and Analysis

After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes: Analysis

Success is Counted Sweetest: Summary and Analysis

I taste a liquor never brewed: Summary and Analysis

A Bird came down the Walk: Summary and Analysis

Hope is the Thing with Feathers: Analysis

I like to see it lap the Miles: Summary and Analysis

I had something that I called mine: Analysis

If I should Die: Summary and Analysis

I'm Nobody! Who are you?: Summary and Analysis

These are the days when the Birds come back

What Inn is this: Summary and Analysis

Exultation is the going: Summary and Analysis

Of Bronze-and Blaze: Summary and Analysis

A Clock Stopped: Summary and Analysis

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain: Summary and Analysis

Safe in their Alabaster Chambers: Analysis

To fight aloud, is very brave: Summary and Analysis

I like a look of Agony: Summary and Analysis

Bring me the sunset in a cup: Summary and Analysis

The day came slow-till Five o'clock: Analysis

Biography of Emily Dickinson

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

There’s a certain Slant of light, Winter Afternoons— That oppresses, like the Heft Of Cathedral Tunes—

Heavenly Hurt it gives us— We can find no scar, But Internal Difference— Where the Meaning,s are—

None may teach it —Any— ‘Tis the Seal Despair — An imperial affliction Sent us of the Air—

When it comes, the Landscape listens— Shadows—hold their breath— When it goes, ‘t is like the Distance On the look of Death—

“There’s a Certain Slant of Light” was written in 1861 and was not published until 1890 by Dickinson’s friend and mentor, Thomas Higginson. Through four stanzas written with the rhyme scheme ABCB, Dickinson expresses the internal, spiritual melancholy she experiences while observing light slanting through a window on a winter afternoon.

Dickinson takes a surprising view on the light slanting through her window. Instead of marveling at the traditionally positive symbolism of light, Dickinson writes that the light “oppresses,” as if the direction of the slant makes it feel as though the light is pressing down on her. The feeling is so powerful that, “the Landscape listens,”and “Shadows -hold their breath.” The emotion is hard to describe and is as complicated as nature itself. That is why the effects of this feeling cannot be seen on the outside; “We can find no scar.” The experience is psychological, “Where the Meanings are.” It is “internal”, heavy like the “heft/ of Cathedral Tunes.” The oppressiveness she feels is sad; however, it is necessary for the speaker to evolve. The word “heft” means weight and significance, but it also suggests upward motion, as if overcoming the oppressive heaviness brings the speaker to “imperial” heights. (MK). All who suffer pain or grief must overcome their sadness to find meaning and grow from their suffering. Suffering “’tis the seal, despair/ An imperial affliction.” After the worthwhile transformation, the speaker feels as though she has moved further along on her journey through life, and is therefore closer to death, “tis like the Distance/ On the look of death.”

Dickinson’s view of God is exemplified in “There’s a certain Slant of Light”. At seventeen, “Dickinson quietly defied both official and peer pressure to experience a conversion to Christianity. Dickinson later admitted in a letter that she secretly worried that somehow she had willfully put herself beyond God’s grace by her rebellion” (Gale). This makes sense of the phrases, “Cathedral Tunes,” and “Heavenly Hurt.” Dickinson saw religion as oppressive and she chose not to align herself with it the way her peers did. Dickinson grew closer to God through experiences, “None may teach it.” The heaviness she speaks of in “There’s a certain Slant of Light”, embodies her personal thoughts on the fear of change necessary for transformation, overcoming grief, and perhaps indirectly, Dickinson’s relationship with the Church. Though the poem describes the oppressiveness Dickinson feels, it also leaves hope for an uplifting experience, despite the fact that in the end Dickinson is brought closer to death.

Bibliography and Further Reading Emily Dickinson and Thomas H. Johnson. The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson . London 1998); MK, Rukhaya. “Literary Analysis: Emily Dickinson’s “There’s a Certain Slant of Light” Books, Literature, and Writing (2012) ; Museum, Emily Dicknson. “The Posthumous Discovery of Dickinson’s Poems.” Homestead and The Evergreens (2009): Emily Dickinson Museum .

Credits Composed by  Rose O’Callaghan, Spring 2017.

American Poetry and Poetics Copyright © 2017 by Mark C. Long is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Share This Book

There's A Certain Slant Of Light

21 pages • 42 minutes read

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Poem Analysis

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Further Reading & Resources

Discussion Questions

Summary and Study Guide

Emily Dickinson is one of the most recognized and influential American poets. Her unique style was initially rejected by publishers, as her work was heavily edited when first published and only during the 1950s did scholars work to return her poetry to its intended form. In addition, her distinct use of punctuation and her ambiguous thematic subjects contribute to the difficulty in classifying her poetry. Scholars place her work in a variety of movements, including Transcendentalism, Romanticism , Realism , and proto-Modernism.

“There’s a certain Slant of light” is a lyric poem published posthumously in 1890. Commonly anthologized, this poem is emblematic of both Dickinson’s style and themes. Dense and ambiguous, the poem describes a beam of light and compares it to cathedral music so that the speaker can consider the spiritual effects of the light. The poem’s themes of religion, death, and despair are prominent across Dickinson’s work.

Get access to this full Study Guide and much more!

• 7,350+ In-Depth Study Guides
• 4,950+ Quick-Read Plot Summaries
• Downloadable PDFs

Dickinson’s poetry is often anthologized and taught in English classes for middle school through university students in the United States.

Poet Biography

The SuperSummary difference

• 8x more resources than SparkNotes and CliffsNotes combined
• Study Guides you won ' t find anywhere else
• 100+ new titles every month

American poet Emily Dickinson was born December 10, 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts. Her family enjoyed some prominence in their community. Dickinson had two siblings: her older brother William Austin and her younger sister Lavinia.

Dickinson attended primary school and was notably well-educated for a girl of her time. With her sister Lavinia, Dickinson started at Amherst Academy in 1840. During her seven years at the school, she studied a variety of subjects, such as English and Classical Literature, botany, geology, history, philosophy, and arithmetic.

Several formative events occurred while Dickinson was at the academy. The death of her second cousin and close friend traumatized her so deeply her family sent her to Boston to recover. During this time, Amherst also experienced a religious revival, which included Dickinson and many of her peers. While Dickinson stayed religious throughout her life, she never made a formal declaration of faith and stopped attending regular services after a few years.

In August 1847, Dickinson began attending Mount Holyoke Female Seminary. She attended only briefly, and scholars cite her poor health, her father’s desire to have her at home, Dickinson’s distaste for the evangelical fervor or strict teachers at the school, or her homesickness as possible explanations for her departure in March 1848.

A family friend, Benjamin Franklin Newton, became a formative mentor in Dickinson’s life. He introduced Dickinson to William Wordsworth’s and Ralph Waldo Emerson’s poetry. This poetry had a liberating effect on her.

In the 1850s, Dickinson also began her strongest and most affectionate relationship with Susan Gilbert, a woman who would go on to marry Dickinson’s brother. This correspondence was Dickinson’s most prolific, as Dickinson wrote her over 300 letters. Susan was not only a friend but a muse and adviser. It is likely that the relationship was a romantic one. In 1856, Susan married Dickinson’s brother after a four-year courtship.

The women’s relationship has only been recently re-evaluated by scholars. Initially, their relationship was dismissed, and Susan’s influence was diminished since the primary source of information came from Mabel Loomis Todd, the mistress of Dickinson’s brother and thus Susan’s romantic rival.

Dickinson rarely traveled far from Amherst, but in the spring of 1855, she accompanied her mother and sister on a five-week trip to Washington and Philadelphia.

Dickinson’s mother became effectively bedridden from the mid 1850s, which caused an increase in Dickinson’s domestic responsibilities while confining her to the house. While this was undoubtedly a burden, a solitary life where she was able to read and care for her plants suited Dickinson.

Beginning in the summer of 1858, her retreat into a more reclusive life allowed her to begin reviewing and editing her poetry. By making clean copies and assembling her work into hand-made manuscripts, Dickinson assured her lasting legacy. She created 40 fascicles, or small booklets, which include a total of over 800 poems. These books were not discovered until her death.

By the first half of the 1860s, Dickinson had largely withdrawn from social life. Scholars speculate as to what caused her seclusion. In her lifetime, she was diagnosed with nervous prostration. Modern scholars interpret this as illnesses like agoraphobia and epilepsy. While the cause of her reclusion is unknown, this would be her most productive writing period.

In April 1862, Dickinson contacted literary critic Thomas Wentworth Higginson after reading his essay in The Atlantic Monthly that gave practical advice for writers wishing to be published. This decision is another indication that suggests Dickinson was considering publishing her poetry. Higginson responded, praising her work but suggesting she wait to publish until she has written longer, as he was unaware she had previously appeared in print. His interest encouraged Dickinson, and they corresponded until her death.

Starting in 1866, Dickinson wrote fewer poems, as she became overwhelmed with domestic work and personal loss. At this time, Dickinson became even more reclusive while her behavior became more eccentric. For example, she began to talk to visitors through a door rather than face to face. Dickinson also began wearing only white clothing. Her behavior resulted in local notoriety. Despite these changes in behavior, Dickinson remained socially active through voluminous letter writing.

While she continued to write in her last few years, Dickinson stopped editing and organizing her works. In addition, she made her sister promise to burn her papers upon her death.

The 1880s were a difficult period for Dickinson and her extended family. Her brother, estranged from his wife Susan, began a love affair with Mabel Loomis Todd. Her brother distanced himself from his family, and Susan was overwhelmed by grief. In addition, Dickinson’s mother and her favorite nephew Gilbert died.

In the fall of 1884, Dickson began to suffer from an extended illness. On May 15, 1886, Dickinson died at the age of 55. Her physician attributed her death to Bright’s disease.

Susan wrote Dickinson’s obituary and washed her body before the funeral. Higginson read Emily Bronte’s poem “No Coward Soul is Mine” at her service. She was buried in a field of buttercups in her family plot at West Cemetery on Triangle Street.

Upon Dickinson’s death, her sister Lavinia kept her promise and burned most of Dickinson’s letters. But as Dickinson had not made specific requests about her poetry, Lavinia kept the nearly 1800 poems she discovered. Four years later, Dickinson’s first volume of poetry was published. This edition was considerably edited and revised to conform to the standards and expectations of the time. Since the first collection in 1890, Dickson’s poetry has remained continuously in print.

Dickinson has been honored extensively. Several schools have been named after her. She was honored with a commemorative stamp in the “American Poet” series in 1971. In 1973, Dickinson was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. Her life has been adapted for the stage, film, and TV. These include the 1976 one-woman play The Belle of Amherst , the 2016 film A Quiet Passion , and the 2019 show Dickinson .

There's a certain Slant of light,

Winter Afternoons –

That oppresses, like the Heft

Of Cathedral Tunes –

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us –

We can find no scar,

But internal difference –

Where the Meanings, are –

None may teach it – Any –

'Tis the seal Despair –

An imperial affliction

Sent us of the Air –

When it comes, the Landscape listens –

Shadows – hold their breath –

When it goes, 'tis like the Distance

On the look of Death –

Dickinson, Emily. “ There’s a certain Slant of light . ” 1890. Poetry Foundation .

The unspecified speaker begins by describing a beam of light coming into their view in an unspecified setting . This light comes at a particular angle, causing the speaker to remark how it weighs down on them like the heaviness of church hymns.

This experience prompts the speaker to reflect on the deep feelings of despair they feel and the pain they feel. This pain is not physical and does not leave a mark, but it is rather an internal confusion about spirituality and the meaning of life.

This pain is not something that can be taught, but rather it is a punishment sent from above, like from an emperor.

When the light and the feeling come, the whole of the landscape becomes still as if it were listening and shadows freeze. When this feeling disappears and the light leaves, the speaker feels as distant as the dead look in a corpse’s eye.

Don't Miss Out!

Access Study Guide Now

Related Titles

By Emily Dickinson

A Bird, came down the Walk

Emily Dickinson

A Clock stopped—

A narrow Fellow in the Grass (1096)

Because I Could Not Stop for Death

"Faith" is a fine invention

Fame Is a Fickle Food (1702)

Hope is a strange invention

"Hope" Is the Thing with Feathers

I Can Wade Grief

I Felt a Cleaving in my Mind

I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain

If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking

If I should die

If you were coming in the fall

I heard a Fly buzz — when I died

I'm Nobody! Who Are You?

Much Madness is divinest Sense—

Success Is Counted Sweetest

Tell all the truth but tell it slant

The Only News I Know

Featured Collections

Religion & Spirituality

View Collection

Required Reading Lists

School Book List Titles

Short Poems

• We play at Paste
• Emily Dickinson

We play at Paste — Till qualified, for Pearl — Then, drop the Paste — And deem ourself a fool —

The Shapes — though — were similar — And our new Hands Learned Gem-Tactics — Practicing Sands —

Analysis, meaning and summary of Emily Dickinson's poem We play at Paste

I understand the comparisons of youth to adulthood but I’ve never read the poem this way. I see a deeper sentiment. We play at paste is the life we live now, we become qualified for pearl, full understanding, when we pass from this life to another. Of course this only applies to those of us who believe we will some day have new hands.

We build on what we have known before. Our old knowledge was not useless or stupid, then.

My 1st idea when I read this is that paste is a glue on which we are stuck and we “play” – try to move there until we gain the qualification to get over that and fight for the “pearl”, our pearl which is different for everyone and it is something precious… I din’t know paste means fake jewllery!! I liked your explanation Lavergne.. I like analysing poems but it’s easier for me to do it in my language’s literature… Though I love Emily+her poems!

Paste is an older, now seldom-used word for fake jewelry, as in costume jewelry. She’s saying that in our youth or ignorance we are often enticed or attracted by something counterfeit. Then we mature or come to a realization (qualified) and give up the counterfeit for something real or true. In the second stanza, though, she suggests that our youthful infatuations were not entirely a waste of time because they were a sort of practice for the real thing.

i don’t care for this poem….i have no idea what it really means!?

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Do you have any comments, criticism, paraphrasis or analysis of this poem that you feel would assist other visitors in understanding the meaning or the theme of this poem by Emily Dickinson better? If accepted, your analysis will be added to this page of American Poems. Together we can build a wealth of information, but it will take some discipline and determination.

There’s a Certain Slant of Light

by Emily Dickinson

There’s a certain Slant of light, Winter Afternoons – That oppresses, like the Heft Of Cathedral Tunes – Heavenly Hurt, it gives us – We can find no scar, But internal difference – Where the Meanings, are – None may teach it – Any – ‘Tis the seal Despair – An imperial affliction Sent us of the Air – When it comes, the Landscape listens – Shadows – hold their breath – When it goes, ‘tis like the Distance On the look of Death –

Summary of There’s a Certain Slant of Light

• Popularity of “There’s a Certain Slant of Light”: Emily Dickinson , a great American poet wrote ‘There’s a Certain Slant of Light’. It is a thought-provoking poem about death. The poem speaks about the heavenly light that adds more to the injuries of our doleful hearts. It also illustrates how nature plays a role in our life.
• “There’s a Certain Slant of Light” As a Representative of Death: This poem is an expression of sorrow. The poem begins with the description of winter nights when the poet feels a certain “slant of light.” She hears the oppressive sounds of church bells that add more to her sorrow in her life but do not leave any external scar. Rather, it changes her from inside. Surprisingly, none may be able to explain it. She considers that light a mark of hopelessness and a pinching experience inflicted by the supreme authority. Though it comes through the air particles, yet every object of nature pays attention to it such as the landscape listens to it and shadows hold their breaths. When the light disappears, the same nature looks like a dead person.
• Major Themes in “There’s a Certain Slant of Light”: Nature, death, and experiences of life are the major themes underlined in this poem. The poem centers on a specific light that enlightens everything in nature. It weighs heavily upon our hearts just like the heart-wrenching church bells. Throughout the poem, the speaker tries to understand the meaning of the world around her. She tries to explain that oppression of understanding links with spirituality.

Analysis of Literary Devices Used in “There’s a Certain Slant of Light”

literary devices are tools that enable the writers to enhance the texts and help the readers understand the hidden meanings. Emily Dickinson has employed some literary devices in this poem to bring depth to her text. The analysis of some of the literary devices used in this poem has been given below.

• Anaphora : It refers to the repetition of a word or expression in the first part of some verses . For example, “when it” is repeated in the last stanza of the poem to emphasize the point.

“When it comes, the Landscape listens – Shadows – hold their breath – When it goes, ‘tis like the Distance On the look of Death.”

• Assonance : Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds in the same line such as the sound of /ee/ in “’Tis the seal Despair”.
• Consonance : Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds in the same line such as the sound of /l/ in “An imperial affliction”.
• Alliteration : Alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds in the same line in quick succession such as the sound of /h/ in “Heavenly Hurt, it gives us –” and the sound of /l/ in “When it comes, the Landscape listens.”
• Imagery : Imagery is used to make readers perceive things involving their five senses. For example,

“There’s a certain Slant of light, Winter Afternoons – That oppresses, like the Heft Of Cathedral Tunes.”

• Personification : Personification is to give human qualities to inanimate objects. For example, nature is personified in the ending lines of the poem,

“When it comes, the Landscape listens – Shadows – hold their breath.”

• Symbolism : Symbolism is using symbols to signify ideas and qualities, giving them symbolic meanings that are different from the literal meanings. “Light” symbolizes spirituality.
• Simile : It is a figure of speech used to compare a person or an object with something else to make the meanings clear to the readers. The poet has used this device in the first stanza of the poem such as;

“That oppresses, like the Heft Of Cathedral Tunes.”

Analysis of Poetic Devices Used in “There’s a Certain Slant of Light”

Poetic and literary devices are the same, but a few are used only in poetry. Here is the analysis of some of the poetic devices used in this poem.

• End Rhyme : End rhyme is used to make the stanza melodious. For example, “despair/air”, “breath/death” and “scar/are.”
• Quatrain : A quatrain is a four-lined stanza borrowed from Persian poetry. Here, each stanza is a quatrain.
• Rhyme Scheme : The poem follows the ABAB rhyme scheme and this pattern continues till the end.
• Stanza : A stanza is a poetic form of some lines. The poem comprises four stanzas having the same number of verses in it.
• Trochee: Trochee means there is a one stressed and one unstressed syllable in a line as given in the next point.
• Stressed and Unstressed Syllables: These two types of syllables are used in trochee such as the first is stressed and second is an unstressed syllable in “There’s a Certain Slant of Light” and this pattern continues throughout the poem.

Quotes to be Used

The lines stated below are useful when talking about the unique characteristics of nature that responds to the one who considers it his/her companion.

Related posts:

• Tell all the Truth but Tell it Slant
• I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died
• Success is Counted Sweetest
• Much Madness is Divinest Sense
• Wild Nights – Wild Nights
• A Bird, Came Down the Walk
• My Life Had Stood – a Loaded Gun
• Some Keep the Sabbath Going to Church
• A Narrow Fellow in the Grass
• After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes
• The Lady of Shalott
• My Last Duchess
• Ode to a Nightingale
• A Red, Red Rose
• The Road Not Taken
• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
• The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
• Death, Be Not Proud
• “Hope” is the Thing with Feathers
• I Carry Your Heart with Me
• The Second Coming
• Ode on a Grecian Urn
• A Visit from St. Nicholas
• The Owl and the Pussy-Cat
• God’s Grandeur
• A Psalm of Life
• To His Coy Mistress
• Ode to the West Wind
• The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls
• Thanatopsis
• Home Burial
• Nothing Gold Can Stay
• In the Bleak Midwinter
• The Chimney Sweeper
• Still I Rise
• See It Through
• The Emperor of Ice-Cream
• Lady Lazarus
• The Twelve Days of Christmas
• On Being Brought from Africa to America
• Jack and Jill
• Little Boy Blue
• On the Pulse of Morning
• Theme for English B
• From Endymion
• Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
• Insensibility
• The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
• To My Mother
• In the Desert
• I dwell in Possibility
• Neutral Tones
• Blackberry-Picking
• On My First Son
• We Are Seven
• Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood
• Sonnet 55: Not Marble nor the Gilded Monuments
• To a Skylark
• Buffalo Bill’s
• Arms and the Boy
• A Wolf Is at the Laundromat
• The Children’s Hour
• The Barefoot Boy
• New Year’s Day
• The Death of the Hired Man
• An Essay on Man: Epistle I
• She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways
• This Is Just To Say
• To — — –. Ulalume: A Ballad
• Who Has Seen the Wind?
• The Landlord’s Tale. Paul Revere’s Ride
• The Chambered Nautilus
• The Wild Swans at Coole
• The Hunting of the Snark
• There is No Frigate like a Book

Post navigation

A Summary and Analysis of Emily Dickinson’s ‘Much Madness is Divinest Sense’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Much Madness Is Divinest Sense’ is the unofficial title of one of Emily Dickinson’s poems (she tended not to give her poems titles: they’re simply numbered in her Complete Poems , and this one is number 620).

The poem challenges conventional notions of sanity and madness, arguing that what society often perceives as ‘madness’ can actually be some kind of profound insight and truth, while those appearing ‘sane’ might be deeply misled. Indeed, what society calls ‘madness’ in some may even be some sort of divine insight, or ‘sense’.

Much Madness is divinest Sense – To a discerning Eye – Much Sense – the starkest Madness – ’Tis the Majority In this, as all, prevail – Assent – and you are sane – Demur – you’re straightway dangerous – And handled with a Chain –

To paraphrase Dickinson’s short poem: to a perceptive person, what appears to be ‘madness’ or insanity in another is actually good sense, divinely inspired. Conversely, what many people assume to be common sense is, in reality, unadulterated madness.

It’s the general consensus among society which determines what is called ‘madness’ and what is deemed ‘sanity’: if you ‘assent’ or agree with the mainstream view in a particular society, you are considered sane, but if you ‘demur’ or object, you’re immediately viewed as dangerously mad, in need to being restrained with a metal chain for your own, and other’s, safety.

This is a loose paraphrase of Dickinson’s little poem, to serve as a ‘way in’ to understanding its core meaning. But what else needs to be said? For a start, how did she come to write such a poem, and hold such views?

In one of her letters, Emily Dickinson wrote: ‘Had we the first intimation of the Definition of Life, the calmest of us would be Lunatics!’ Dickinson’s poem is interested not just in worldly sanity (or insanity) but in ideas of the divine, or religious. If any of us had a glimpse of the divine and discovered the real reason we’re all here on earth, the revelation would be enough to render even the sanest and calmest of us a babbling madman (or madwoman).

Dickinson’s poem is, of course, concerned with a reversal of normality: ‘Much Madness’, she begins by asserting, is actually – contrary to popular belief ‘divinest Sense.’ Not all madness, we should note, but ‘much’, nevertheless. For every random person who is merely mentally unwell and in need of help and sympathy, there may also be a William Blake, or some other visionary who was denounced as a ‘lunatic’ because their insights and work were barely understood by their contemporaries.

In other words, contrary to societal expectations, we should keep in mind that what is considered mad might hold deeper meaning than what appears normal. And the flipside of this is that behaviour or attitudes which might appear ‘normal’ and perfectly sane may actually be madness, but the insanity of such behaviours and ideas are hidden from people because the majority holds them.

Consider some of the views which people of a century or so ago held. Eugenics was, for a long time in the early twentieth century, enthusiastically endorsed by many prominent intellectuals and thinkers, who believed that all of humankind could be improved with a little cleansing of the gene pool.

Nowadays, the mainstream view is that eugenics is an abhorrent practice and an unacceptable infringement on an individual’s right to have children. We take such a view for granted, but a hundred years ago, many leading thinkers would look at you as if you were mad for saying such a thing.

Similarly, two hundred years ago, the idea that women should have equal voting rights to men was a fringe notion in many countries. In Britain, even the Chartists campaigned for electoral reform for men alone, rather than women. Nowadays, it’s people who object to equal suffrage for the two sexes who are considered the irrational ones.

The point, then, is that societies decide which views are considered ‘mad’ and which are ‘sane’, but societies can be wrong. It’s the majority that decides, but there’s a well-known logical fallacy, argumentum ad populum (Latin for ‘appeal to the people’), which revolves around claiming something is true or morally good because many people think it is. Two centuries ago, many people in Britain and the US believed slavery was a good thing. How many people in the twenty-first century believe it is?

This phenomenon was already well-known in the nineteenth century, when Dickinson (1830-86) was writing. Charles Mackay’s Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds , published in 1841, had explored how many manias of the past – from Tulip mania to the South Sea Bubble to the Crusades – were regarded as perfectly rational pursuits, or beliefs, when they happened.

The Tyranny of the Mob

The speaker of Dickinson’s poem highlights that divine inspiration from God often comes to those perceived as mad; she implies that these individuals possess a unique, divinely-inspired understanding. However, society fails to recognize their genius, instead labelling them ‘starkest Madness’.

If this were all the poem said, however, the sentiment would be unremarkable. What gives ‘Much Madness Is Divinest Sense’ its acute psychological edge – its ‘bite’, we might say, or even its social commentary – is the closing image of the ‘demurrer’ being bound in chains for merely voicing opposition to the beliefs of the crowd.

As Helen Vendler points out in her study of Dickinson’s poetry, Dickinson , ‘demur’ is a mild verb which means voicing the gentlest opposition to something. It is not vehement rejection or resistance, but, we might say, a simple case of saying, ‘But surely …’ or ‘But what about …’

For this offence, the demurrer is proclaimed ‘mad’ and restrained in the most objectionable way. What else, we may wonder, does the bullying mob plan to do with that individual once they have him or her chained? As Vendler argues, the Dickinson’s ‘protest is against the Majority’s vehement conviction that a demurral to its views is so dangerous that it must be repressed, censored, or bestially punished.’

So Dickinson’s poem criticises the majority, not just for lacking the insight that a handful of rare visionaries have into what is true and what is not, but for treating those who do possess that insight both cruelly and unfairly, feeling confident that they are in the right because they outnumber the individual demurrer.

The poem’s unconventional use of capitalisation, dashes, and slant rhyme reflects Dickinson’s unique style and adds to the poem’s enigmatic nature. The metre is largely iambic:

Much MAD-ness IS di-VIN-est SENSE – To A dis-CERN-ing EYE –

It might be worth reading this prose poem from the twentieth-century Lebanese-American poet Kahlil Gibran alongside Dickinson’s, since its message – if that is the word – chimes in some ways with the meaning found in this poem.

Discover more from Interesting Literature

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Type your email…

Continue reading

Wild nights - Wild nights! Summary & Analysis by Emily Dickinson

• Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis
• Poetic Devices
• Vocabulary & References
• Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme
• Line-by-Line Explanations

"Wild nights - Wild nights!" is a poem by Emily Dickinson, one of the most famous and original of American writers. In this brief but powerful poem, the speaker longs to share "wild nights" with an absent lover. She imagines herself as a sailor on a stormy sea, searching for the harbor of her love. The lover in the poem might reference the speaker's desire to be closer to God, or simply the desire to be intimate with another person. On that note, when the poem was first published in an 1891 collection of Dickinson's work, the publisher worried that the poem's eroticism might shock the general public!

• Read the full text of “Wild nights - Wild nights!”

The Full Text of “Wild nights - Wild nights!”

1 Wild nights - Wild nights!

2 Were I with thee

3 Wild nights should be

4 Our luxury!

5 Futile - the winds -

6 To a Heart in port -

7 Done with the Compass -

8 Done with the Chart!

9 Rowing in Eden -

10 Ah - the Sea!

11 Might I but moor - tonight -

12 In thee!

“Wild nights - Wild nights!” Summary

“wild nights - wild nights” themes.

Sexual Passion

• See where this theme is active in the poem.

Longing and Absence

Religious Fervor

Line-by-line explanation & analysis of “wild nights - wild nights”.

Wild nights - Wild nights!

Were I with thee

Wild nights should be Our luxury!

Futile - the winds - To a Heart in port -

Done with the Compass - Done with the Chart!

Rowing in Eden - Ah - the Sea!

Lines 11-12

Might I but moor - tonight - In thee!

“Wild nights - Wild nights!” Symbols

• See where this symbol appears in the poem.

“Wild nights - Wild nights!” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

Alliteration.

• See where this poetic device appears in the poem.

Extended Metaphor

“wild nights - wild nights” vocabulary.

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.

Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Wild nights - Wild nights!”

Rhyme scheme, “wild nights - wild nights” speaker, “wild nights - wild nights” setting, literary and historical context of “wild nights - wild nights”, more “wild nights - wild nights” resources, external resources.

An article by Dickinson's publisher, Thomas Higginson — This 1891 article from the Atlantic is Dickinson's publisher's account of his correspondence with her and the posthumous printing of her poems.

A Short Biography of Dickinson — The Poetry Foundation's biography of Dickinson, with links to more of her poems.

Dickinson's Manuscript Copy of the Poem — The manuscript for "Wild nights - Wild nights!" in Dickinson's own handwriting.

The Emily Dickinson Museum — The official website for the Emily Dickinson museum, with further information on her life and works.

Sarah Arvio's Reading of "Wild nights - Wild nights!" — A short piece from the Poetry Society of America on a writer's first experience reading this poem (including opinions on some of the readings discussed in this guide).

LitCharts on Other Poems by Emily Dickinson

A Bird, came down the Walk

After great pain, a formal feeling comes –

A Light exists in Spring

A Murmur in the Trees—to note—

A narrow Fellow in the Grass

An awful Tempest mashed the air—

As imperceptibly as grief

A still—Volcano—Life—

Because I could not stop for Death —

Before I got my eye put out

Fame is a fickle food

Hope is the thing with feathers

I cannot live with You –

I cautious, scanned my little life

I could bring You Jewels—had I a mind to—

I did not reach Thee

I died for Beauty—but was scarce

I dreaded that first Robin, so

I dwell in Possibility –

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain

If I can stop one heart from breaking

I had been hungry, all the Years

I have a Bird in spring

I heard a Fly buzz - when I died -

I like a look of Agony

I like to see it lap the Miles

I measure every Grief I meet

I’m Nobody! Who are you?

I started Early — Took my Dog —

I taste a liquor never brewed

It was not Death, for I stood up

I—Years—had been—from Home—

Like Rain it sounded till it curved

Much Madness is divinest Sense -

My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun

Nature is what we see

One need not be a Chamber — to be Haunted

Publication — is the Auction

Safe in their Alabaster Chambers

Success is counted sweetest

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —

The Brain—is wider than the Sky—

The Bustle in a House

The Mushroom is the Elf of Plants

There came a Wind like a Bugle

There is no Frigate like a Book

There's a certain Slant of light

There's been a Death, in the Opposite House

The saddest noise, the sweetest noise

The Sky is low — the Clouds are mean

The Soul has bandaged moments

The Soul selects her own Society

The Wind – tapped like a tired Man –

They shut me up in Prose –

This is my letter to the world

This World is not Conclusion

'Twas the old—road—through pain—

We grow accustomed to the Dark

What mystery pervades a well!

Whose cheek is this?

Everything you need for every book you read.