Nineteenth-century American poet Emily Dickinson explored mourning, religious doubt, and the nature of knowledge in her 1862 poem “I heard a Fly buzz — when I died.” While the rest of the Dickinson family publicly joined the Amherst First Congregational Church during a time of intense religious revival, Dickinson never did and even stopped attending by 1868. Death fueled Dickinson’s religious questions and insecurities. “The world goes out, and I see nothing but her room, and angels bearing her into those great countries in the blue sky of which we don’t know anything,” Dickinson wrote after her maternal aunt’s death in 1860 (Dickinson, Emily. Emily Dickinson Letters. Edited by Emily Fragos, Alfred A. Knopf, 2011). 

Much of this letter’s imagery echoes inside “I heard a Fly buzz — when I died,” a poem which also features a room and a presence that seems to whisk the dying speaker away into the unknown. Dickinson weaves religious meter, symbolism, and ideas throughout the poem as if trying to break through the fact she “could not see to see.” If she did, she might have a possibility of cutting through “the difficulty of establishing a relationship with God” (Ladin, Jay. “MEETING HER MAKER: Emily Dickinson’s God.” CrossCurrents, vol. 56, no. 3, Wiley, 2006, pp. 343).

Poet Biography

Emily Dickinson stands as one of the Great American poetic innovators. Dickinson was born in 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts. Poet Adrienne Rich hailed Dickinson’s work as “a language more varied, more compressed, more dense with implications, more complex of syntax than any American poetic language to date” (Erkkila, Betsy. “Emily Dickinson on Her Own Terms.” The Wilson Quarterly [1976-], vol. 9, no. 2, [Wilson Quarterly, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars], 1985, p. 98). Although she published only 10 poems during her life without attribution or probable authorization, her distinctive em-dashes left a considerable mark. 

For most of her life, Dickinson lived with her parents, Emily Norcross and Edward, and her siblings, William Austen and Lavinia, on the family homestead. Edward rose to local prominence as a lawyer, state legislator, US Congressman, and community leader despite his father depleting the family fortune to help found Amherst College (“Edward Dickinson (1803-1874), Father.” Emily Dickinson Museum). He highly valued learning, keeping an extensive library at his house. This library aided in developing Dickinson’s love of literature and learning. She pursued the practices of botany, gardening, and baking throughout her life. Many of Dickinson’s early social life revolved around books. She attended a Shakespeare reading circle, discussed books with the intellectuals gathered around Amherst University, and received books as gifts (“Emily Dickinson and Reading.” Emily Dickinson Museum). She was very familiar with the Romantics. She loved other female writers such as the Brontë sisters, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and George Elliot (Erkkila 100).

Highly educated and friendly, Dickinson attended Amherst Academy and later Mount Holyoke Seminary in the next town over, South Hadley. However, her studies at Mount Holyoke only lasted a year, 1847 through 1848. By 1868, she never left the Dickinson property. Scholar Betsy Erkkila believes Dickinson chose a more reclusive lifestyle as a method of “artistic self-preservation”; Erkkila explains that records show Dickinson “spent more of her time reading, thinking, and writing” with the four years between 1858 to 1862 as her most productive (Erkkila 100). Erkkila claims Dickinson produced a poem per day during this period. Despite her lack of publication credits, Dickinson committed to her craft. At home, she bound her poems into booklets or fascicles. She began a life-long and serious correspondence with essayists and editor Thomas Wentworth Higginson after she mailed him a letter asking if he thought her verse was “alive” (Ackmann, Martha. “The Letter That Changed Emily Dickinson’s Life.” Literary Hub, 26 May 2020).

She also formed a friendship over writing with fellow Amherst-born poet Helen Hunt Jackson. Jackson encouraged Dickinson to publish, and some believe Jackson holds responsibility for the appearance of Dickinson’s poem, “Success is counted sweetest” in the 1878 A Masque of Poets anthology (“Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885), Friend.” Emily Dickinson Museum).

Other scholars theorize that Dickinson became reclusive due to her health. Edward feared for his children’s health since he believed his children could have inherited their maternal family’s hereditary predisposition towards tuberculosis—then known as consumption. Edward even went as far as interfering with his daughter’s schooling when she developed potential consumptive signs, preventing her from finishing term at the Amherst Academy approximately twice. His concern for Dickinson’s health may have been one reason she dropped out from Mount Holyoke in 1848. In adulthood, she consulted doctors in Boston for consumptive symptoms in 1851 and a long-term eye affliction, theorized to be iritis, from 1863 through 1865. Additionally, the once sociable Dickinson began showcasing traits that align with the modern definition of an anxiety disorder in her mid-twenties. Reportedly, she had more and more difficulty socializing with her friends, going as far as only talking with a few people from behind a door and fleeing from the doorbell (“Emily Dickinson’s Health.” Emily Dickinson Museum). 

“[Emily] had become the village mystery, inaccessible to all but an elect few, who were admitted to the sanctuary with appropriate preliminaries and ceremonies,” remarked Dickinson’s childhood friend Abby Wood Bliss after returning to Amherst in 1873 (“Abby Wood Bliss (1830-1915), Friend.” Emily Dickinson Museum).

While others have speculated that a romantic heartbreak triggered Dickinson’s withdrawal from society thanks to a collection of her love letters dubbed the Master Letters, historians remain unsure if she ever sent these letters or wrote them to an actual person (Erkkila 101). The exact explanation for her self-exile may never be confirmed. Dickinson asked her sister to burn her letters after Dickinson died in 1886 (Kelly, Hillary. “Master Narrative: Who Did Emily Dickinson Write Her Love Letters to?” Los Angeles Review of Books, Los Angeles Review of Books, July 22 2012).

Researchers speculate Dickinson succumbed to heart failure from high blood pressure as reportedly she experienced stress after the deaths of multiple loved ones, severe headaches, and nausea as well as trouble breathing during her deathbed coma. The local physician, Dr. Otis F. Bigelow, recorded initially “Bright’s Disease” caused Dickinson’s death. “Bright’s Disease” was then used as a diagnosis for hypertensive and kidney issues (“Emily Dickinson and Death.” Emily Dickinson Museum).

Although Lavinia dutifully followed her sister’s wishes and burned most of Dickinson’s letters, Lavinia worked hard to publish Dickinson’s poems. Lavinia uncovered hundreds of poems after her sister’s death. Initially, she inquired Susan, her sister-in-law, who is also one of Dickinson’s rumored lovers, and Higginson to assist in the venture. Susan took too long with the project, and Higginson needed to attend to other matters. Lavinia then reached out to Loomis, known for her artistic talents and vivacious nature, to spearhead the project. Loomis then convinced Higginson to co-edit Poems of Emily Dickinson with her, with the book published in 1890. A second collection followed in 1891. Loomis edited the third volume by herself in 1896. She also published a book of Dickinson’s letters two years prior. The books grabbed readers’ attention, but Loomis and Higginson made significant edits to the poems, such as altering punctuation and word choice (“The Posthumous Discovery of Dickinson’s Poems.” Emily Dickinson Museum).

After a tense falling out between the Loomis and Dickinson families, Loomis stopped working on publishing Dickinson’s work. This break left room for Dickinson’s niece Bianchi to begin her own publishing project around her aunt. Bianchi editorially interfered less with Dickinson’s work, making sure to leave the poems untitled and with their original rhyme schemes. Bianchi released around six volumes of her aunt’s poetry. However, neither Bianchi nor Loomis and Higginson chronically ordered their editions. Bianchi also wrote several memoirs to counter other “publications about her aunt that she judged inaccurate” (“The Posthumous Discovery of Dickinson’s Poems”).

Loomis restarted publishing her versions of Dickinson’s poems since she wanted to counter Bianchi’s work. Loomis worked for the rest of her life preparing the remaining Dickinson poems in her possession. Loomis’s daughter, Millicent, finished the book and released it in 1945 as Bolts of Memory. 

Soon after, literary scholar Thomas H. Johnson compiled Dickinson’s poems into a single collection, The Poems of Emily Dickinson (1955). Unlike his predecessors, Johnson ordered the poems chronically and used the poet’s original manuscripts to keep the poems as accurate as possible. The Poems of Emily Dickinson (1955) led to a boom in interest and scholarship about Dickinson. Dickinson expert Ralph W. Franklin further campaigned Dickinson’s original manuscripts in 1998 with The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Variorum Edition. This new collection boasted the highest number ever gathered of Dickinson’s poems at 1,789. He also re-arranged the poems due to new dating information. He rendered each manuscript’s text individually along with her revisions and variants (“The Poems of Emily Dickinson - Emily Dickinson, R. W. Franklin.” Harvard University Press, Harvard University).

Since the publication of The Poems of Emily Dickinson (1955), Dickinson’s original manuscripts have become increasingly available. Franklin published Dickinson’s fascicles in The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson (1981). Jen Bervin and Marta Werner unveiled The Gorgeous Nothings: Emily Dickinson’s Envelope Poems in 2013, followed by a condensed edition called Envelope Poems in 2016. Also, in 2016, Cristanne Miller edited and released Emily Dickinson’s Poems as She Preserved Them. The Emily Dickinson Archive allows readers to digitally access high-resolution, open access images of Dickinson’s manuscripts.  

Poem Text

I heard a Fly buzz — when I died –

The Stillness in the Room

Was like the Stillness in the Air –

Between the Heaves of Storm –

The Eyes around – had wrung them dry –

And Breaths were gathering firm

For that last Onset – when the King

Be witnessed – in the Room –

I willed my Keepsakes – Signed away

What portion of me be

Assignable – and then it was

There interposed a Fly –

With Blue – uncertain – stumbling Buzz –

Between the light – and me –

And then the Windows failed – and then

I could not see to see –

Dickinson, Emily. “I heard a Fly buzz – when I died.” 1862. Poetry Foundation.

Summary

The speaker—either a ghost or on the cusp of death—recounts her final moments. She rests in a room with a window. While she acknowledges the presence of mourners, she remembers hearing “a Fly buzz” the most (Lines 1-6). Those around her have stopped crying for a moment, letting the silence fill the room so that they may witness the exact moment of her passing when God comes for her (Lines 2-8).

The speaker continues to think about those she will leave behind, comforting herself that she has willed them all of her that she can give, i.e., personal belongings (Lines 9-11). However, the Fly interrupts her thoughts (Lines 11-13). From there, the clarity of her surroundings weakens. The speaker only gets to describe the Fly as “blue” before it loses all visual shape and transforms into a buzzing noise (Lines 12-14). Its hum subsumes all visual stimulation. The room vanishes from her sight (Lines 14-15), signaling her dying moment, completely cutting her off from everything and everyone (Line 16).