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Emily DickinsonA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Even to readers unfamiliar with the reach of American poetry, Emily Dickinson is a known commodity. She is the Un-poet: unmarried, unloved, unhappy, unsatisfied, unknown, unattractive (she famously compared her face to a kangaroo’s), unread and unpublished. It is tempting to let Poem 252 rest on simplifications that reflect the Un-poet. In this reading, Dickinson, the deeply troubled hermit who wrestled with melancholia, lays out how it feels to accept sorrow as the medium of her life.
Perhaps.
The word “wade” is today associated with hesitant, uncertain movement (as in a kids’ wading pool), derives from an Old English word—wadan—that is actually a military term and means to move directly into what most terrifies, often enemy lines. To wade grief, then, is not a sign of despair or weakness but rather of boldness, the heart a warrior rushing into the fight. Why? It is Dickinson’s insight into the dynamics of emotions that the heart is far more resilient than may be suspected, that the heart is up to the challenge of sorrow, that joy itself is temporary, fleeting, and the hobgoblin of flimsy and tiny hearts. “Power is only Pain / Stranded, thro Discipline/ Till Weights—will hang” (Lines 10-12). Pain is the stuff of everyday, it weighs down every moment until we develop the emotional discipline necessary to meet its challenge.
By Emily Dickinson
A Bird, came down the Walk
A Bird, came down the Walk
Emily Dickinson
A Clock stopped—
A Clock stopped—
Emily Dickinson
A narrow Fellow in the Grass (1096)
A narrow Fellow in the Grass (1096)
Emily Dickinson
Because I Could Not Stop for Death
Because I Could Not Stop for Death
Emily Dickinson
"Faith" is a fine invention
"Faith" is a fine invention
Emily Dickinson
Fame Is a Fickle Food (1702)
Fame Is a Fickle Food (1702)
Emily Dickinson
Hope is a strange invention
Hope is a strange invention
Emily Dickinson
"Hope" Is the Thing with Feathers
"Hope" Is the Thing with Feathers
Emily Dickinson
I Felt a Cleaving in my Mind
I Felt a Cleaving in my Mind
Emily Dickinson
I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain
I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain
Emily Dickinson
If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking
If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking
Emily Dickinson
If I should die
If I should die
Emily Dickinson
If you were coming in the fall
If you were coming in the fall
Emily Dickinson
I heard a Fly buzz — when I died
I heard a Fly buzz — when I died
Emily Dickinson
I'm Nobody! Who Are You?
I'm Nobody! Who Are You?
Emily Dickinson
Much Madness is divinest Sense—
Much Madness is divinest Sense—
Emily Dickinson
Success Is Counted Sweetest
Success Is Counted Sweetest
Emily Dickinson
Tell all the truth but tell it slant
Tell all the truth but tell it slant
Emily Dickinson
The Only News I Know
The Only News I Know
Emily Dickinson
There is no Frigate like a Book
There is no Frigate like a Book
Emily Dickinson