FREE ESSAY ON EMILY DICKINSON-FIVE POEMS COMPARED IN COMEDIC TONE

EMILY DICKINSON-FIVE POEMS COMPARED IN COMEDIC TONE

While much of Emily Dickinson's poetry has been described as sad or morose, the poetess
did use humor and irony in many of her poems. This essay will address the humor and/ or
irony found in five of Dickinson's poems: Faith is a Fine Invention, I'm Nobody! Who are
you?, Some keep the Sabbath Going to Church and Success Is Counted Sweetest. The attempt
will be made to show how Dickinson used humor and / or irony for the dual purposes of
comic relief and to stress an idea or conclusion about her life and environment expressed
by the poetess in the respective poem. The most humorous or ironic are some of the
shorter poems, such as the four lined stanzas of Faith is a Fine Invention and Success Is
Counted Sweetest. In Faith..., Dickinson presents a witty and biting satirical look at
Faith and its limitations. While it still amuses readers today, it must be mentioned that
this short poem would have had a greater impact and seriousness to an audience from the
period Dickinson lived in. Dickinson was raised in a strict Calvinist household and
received most of her education in her youth at a boarding school that also followed the
American Puritanical tradition she was raised in. In this short, witty piece Dickinson
addresses two of the main obsessions of her generation: The pursuit of empirical
knowledge through science, faith in an all-knowing, all-powerful Christian god and the
debate on which was the more powerful belief. In this poem Dickinson uses humor to ease
her position in the debate on to the reader. Dickinson uses her ability to write
humourously and ironically (as seen in her suggestion of the use of microscopes) to
present a firm, controversial opinion into what could be dismissed as an irreverent,
inconsequential piece of writing. In Success..., Dickinson's emphasis is less on humor
and more on expressing irony. This poem may be partially auto-biographical in nature.
Dickinson made few attempts during her life to be taken as more than an armature poetess.
On one occasion, she sent a collection of her poems to a correspondent who was also a
published poet. His criticism of the poems devastated Dickinson, and she never made
another attempt towards publishing her works. In Success..., Dickinson reflects on the
nature of success and how, ironically, it can be best appreciated and understood by those
who have not achieved it and have no taste of it. As in Faith..., Dickinson powerfully
presents her thoughts in a few lines. The poem deals only with one, ironic but universal,
idea in its short length. It is the bitterness expressed at this irony (as found it
Dickinson's juxtaposition of the words sweetest and sorest, separated by two lines) that
is most felt by the reader. While the previous poem expresses the poetess' bitterness and
sorrow with one aspect of her life, I'm Nobody! Who Are You? uses humor without irony to
address another. In this poem, Dickinson style appears almost child-like in its of
descriptions including frogs and bogs, as well as the lively energy expressed by the poem
through its use of dashes and brief wording. Dickinson seems to be addressing her
spinster, hermit-like existence (I'm Nobody) and her preference to it. The poetess seems
to relate that her situation has not left her without a sense of humor, but in fact has
allowed her to maintain a child-like outlook on life rather than adapting to the boring
norms of her society ( How dreary - to be - Somebody!). She mocks the conventional need
for self-importance through publicity (How public - like a Frog - / To tell one's name -
the livelong June -), suggesting that the audience isn't that interested ( / To an
admiring Bog). She instead seems to idealize her solitude by creating the mysterious
feeling of a secret society of social outcasts (Don't tell! they'd advertise - you
know!). In this poem, she effectively uses humor to soften a critique of certain members
of her society. While this poem is longer than the other poems discussed, it too is able
to express the quality of brevity and lightness in that it's composition is full of
dashes, with even full sentences broken into short, quick actions that easily roll off of
the tongue when spoken aloud (How dreary - to be - Somebody). The technical composition
of this poem is two stanzas, however, Dickinson is able to refresh the form with her use
of dashes and short words to give it energy and liveliness. The poem Some Keep the Sabbat
Going to Church, is the longest poem discussed in this essay, composed of three stanzas.
When comparing her humorous poems to the other poems found in this collection, it is
found that these poems are the shortest in length. They are also composed in stanzas,
which is not found in all Dickinson's poem. It might be that in the attempt to keep the
nature (if not the subject matter) of the poems light-hearted, Dickinson purposely chose
this traditional and un-challenging form. In Some..., Dickinson again turns to humor and
irony to address issues she has with the conventions of religion common to her society,
as seen in Faith.... Dickinson questions the sincerity of those who attend Church on
Sunday on a regular basis. Through the use of comparing the conventions of Church (such
as the Bell, the Sermon, Dome and Choir) with her own celebration of the Sabbat through
the appreciation of nature, Dickinson ironically suggests that those in attendance at
Church may not be as sincere in their worship as she is. The poetess' mocks the
congregations attendance as being merely for show and to gain status in the community by
doing what is expected of them (God preaches, a noted Clergyman). As well, she argues
with the assumption that attending church alone will lead towards salvation, suggesting
that it is her own actions of finding God in Nature (And an Orchard, for a Dome) on a
regular, constant basis (I'm going all along) which is the more true path towards
salvation. The humor in the last poem is not as explicit as found in the other poems
discussed, nor is the irony as directly expressed as in Success ... The irony is first
suggested in the opening lines of Some keep the Sabbat going to Church - / I keep it
staying home and reaches it most explicit form in the closing lines of So instead of
getting to Heaven, at last - I'm going, all along. It might be that due to the fact this
poem addresses social conventions more than actual spirituality and a belief in God that
Dickinson chooses to keep the level of irony lower than found in Faith... The humor found
in this poem is less explicit as well. While the contrasts of a Bobolink for a Choirister
and a Orchard for a Done is humourous, in these descriptions Dickinson appears to be
confessing her own individual, private communion with God to the reader. Thus she does
not accentuate the humor in the juxtaposition of the objects in order not to trivialize
her own beliefs, but allows enough humor to enter the description to stamp the poem with
the child-like free spiritedness found in ...Nobody.... Again in this poem, the poetess'
desire for seclusion and unconventionality is expressed eloquently through a light-handed
treatment of the subject matter. In conclusion, it can be stated the examples of Emily
Dickinson's work discussed in this essay show the poetess to be highly skilled in the use
of humor and irony. The use of these two tools in her poems is to stress a point or idea
the poetess is trying to express, rather than being an end in themselves. These two tools
allow her to present serious critiques of her society and the place she feels she has
been allocated into by masking her concerns in a light-hearted, irreverent tone