Realism And Romanticism In The Poetry Of Emily Dickinson

Sam Nelson

Fr. Fitzgibbons

English 190

11/25/04

Realism and Romanticism in the Poetry of Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson is generally known as a romantic era poetess, yet she frequently integrated a surprising realism into her romantically styled poetry. Often choosing topics related to realism for her poetry, she enigmatically shrouded her lines in romantic language. Her rich imagination, focus on nature, and use of symbolism thus created a romantic mood in poems otherwise grounded in realism. Her poems "303" and "465" are both excellent examples of Emily Dickenson's intertwined use of realism and romanticism.

A focus on nature presents itself as a crucial component of romanticism. In her poetry, Emily Dickinson takes simple, obvious aspects of the world around her and conveys them as very complex, using romantic language to disguise the inherent realism. To Emily Dickinson, "the general symbol of Nature is death (Larrabee 115)", which she speaks about in poem "465". "465" gives us a lament about being on a deathbed, while a fly buzzes about, and the persona slowly slips away into death. The realism in this poem comes from its truthful handling of death, but Dickenson enlarges this eternal theme by overlaying it with a romantic-style point of view. The poem states:

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- ("465", lines 1-4)

This passage speaks of the material and realistic aspects of death - but adds the colorful "romantic" image of the fly buzzing about while the persona slowly dies in bed, and further intensifies the effect with the dual stillness after the persona's death. The persona and the buzz of the fly are both silent. Note that the fly is not represented by a material image, but rather with its associated symbol: a buzzing sound. An additional romantic twist is in Dickinson's choice of words to describe the stillness. In an analogy to nature, the room's stillness is compared to that of the calm between storms. The vivid imagery of this simile is another characteristic of romanticism, which often relies on emotional conveyance rather than simple statements of fact.

The poem again speaks of the realism with the signing of the will:

I willed my Keepsakes- Signed away

What portion of me be

Assignable-and then it was

There interposed a fly ("465", lines 9-12)

Here Emily Dickinson speaks in a straightforward manner about how she is signing her will, giving her material possessions away. By refraining to embellish the signing of the will with vivid imagery, Dickinson seems to be making the realistic suggestion that death has no hold on material goods, and, conversely, that material goods are the only things that the dying can designate for those left behind. There is an honest realism in this thought. And yet the fly once again enters into the picture, distracting the dying persona, almost whimsically breaking into his or her straightforward completion of the tasks of dying. Once again the poem is on a romantic plane, as the insistent fly again is represented using its sound rather than its physical being. The poem closes with the juxtaposition of sound and fading light, as Emily Dickenson's last stanza in poem "465" reads;

With Blue-uncertain stumbling Buzz-

Between the light-and me-

And then the Windows failed-and then

I could not see to see- ("465", 13-16)

Throughout the entirety of the poem, Dickinson focuses on the individual, a critical part of romanticism. Although possessions are willed away, there is no mention of another person present with the sole persona. Emily Dickenson writes "465" in the first person, helping the reader identify with the individual. She writes in "465" how "I heard a fly buzz ("465, line 1)", and "Between the light-and me-("465", line 14)," and repeatedly uses the words "I" and "me", maintaining the focus upon her individual and very personal actions and thoughts. Dickinson also incorporates