illustrated portrait of English poet Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson

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In "This is my Letter to the World" Dickinson, in effect, state that the poem us her letter. Do you think the other poems are additional "letters". the other poem are - "This is my Letter to the world", "Hope is the thing with feather", "Success is counted sweetest", "Much Madness is divinest Sense", "My Life closed twice before its close", "After great Pain a formal feeling comes", "I heard a Fly buzz when I died", "Because I could not stop for Death"

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In many respects, Dickinson's poems can be seen as her "letters to the world."  There is so much in way of personal reflection in each poem that it is difficult to not seem them as a subjective expression to the objective or external.  Given the fact that her life was lived in isolation from others and that her world was not extremely well known to others, Dickinson's voice was through her work.  It would make sense that this voice would be meant to transmitted through poetry and her thoughts about her state of being in the world.  In the poems listed, there is an expression of individual belief about what it means to live, to experience joy and pain, and to be a feeling person in a world that might not share that level of feeling and emotion.  Poetry becomes the vehicle by which the poet and the reader can find some solace in this disconnect.

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