Discussion Topic
Analysis and critique of Emily Dickinson's "My Life Closed Twice Before Its Close"
Summary:
Emily Dickinson's "My Life Closed Twice Before Its Close" explores themes of loss and mortality. The poem reflects on the speaker's profound personal losses, which felt like death itself. The final lines suggest a struggle with the unknown, as the speaker contemplates the possibility of a third, ultimate closure. Dickinson's use of paradox and concise language poignantly conveys the inevitability and mystery of life's endings.
What poetic devices are in Emily Dickinson's "My Life Closed Twice Before its Close"?
In Emily Dickinson's poem "My Life Closed Twice Before its Close," death is used as a metaphor for two events in the narrator's (poet's) life. We are not told what these events are, but they are surely tragic. The narrator feels as if she has died. If you do a bit of research, you will find that Dickinson lost two loved ones within a year of each other, so those losses may have been her inspiration for this poem.
The rhyme scheme in the poem is A, B, C, B in the first stanza and D, E, F, E in the second. This gives the poem a simple rhythm throughout.
Dickinson ponders actual physical death in comparison to the events suffered in life. Notice that the only capitalized word other than the first word in each line, is "Immortality," personifying the end of life or the beginning of what...
Unlock This Answer Now
Start your 48-hour free trial and get ahead in class. Boost your grades with access to expert answers and top-tier study guides. Thousands of students are already mastering their assignments—don't miss out. Cancel anytime.
Already a member? Log in here.
happens next.
Dickinson uses alliteration in the line, "So huge, so hopeless to conceive," repeating both the primary "s" sound and the secondary "h" sound.
Finally, even the length of the poem may be an abstract allusion to the short time each of us has in this physical life of ours.
References
What is your critique of Emily Dickinson's poem "My Life Closed Twice Before Its Close"?
"My Life Closed Twice Before Its Close" is a short but ambiguous and rather cryptic poem. The first line, "My life closed twice before its close," seems somewhat paradoxical. The speaker seems to be looking back retrospectively and reflecting upon two metaphorical deaths which preceded her final, literal death. Emily Dickinson uses this retrospective afterlife perspective in other poems, including "Because I Could Not Stop for Death."
The two metaphorical deaths could refer to two incidents of heartbreak, or parting endured by the speaker, which were so severe as to seemingly "close" her life. At the end of the first stanza, the speaker wonders if "Immortality," or, in other words, the afterlife from which she speaks, will bring her a third such "event," or heartbreak.
In the second stanza, the speaker suggests that she won't be able to endure a third such heartbreak. She finds it "hopeless to conceive," meaning perhaps that she can't imagine enduring such pain again, or that she can't imagine surviving such a pain for the third time. The second stanza concludes just as the first began—with a seemingly paradoxical phrase. The speaker says that "Parting is all we know of heaven," implying perhaps that there is a glimpse of something heavenly in the experience of heartbreak. Perhaps she means that when we are parted from someone we love, we experience an intensified form of that love, which is so pure as to be heavenly. However, the poem then concludes with the declaration that "Parting is . . . all we need of hell." The implication here is that although the intensified love is, in its own way, heavenly, it is nonetheless hellish to realize that one must be parted from that love. It is as if the speaker feels hell all the more intensely because she has, albeit briefly, experienced heaven.
What poetic devices does Dickinson use in "My Life Closed Twice Before Its Close"?
When I teach this poem I call attention the rhythm, rhyme scheme, punctuation, and figures of speech, and of course meaning. It consists of two quatrains, abcb and defe. Rhyming words attract each other, connecting their meanings, which here make “see” resonate with “me,” and “befell” resonate with “hell.” (“conceive,” provides a partial rhyme with “me.”) The first and third lines, which don’t rhyme, are iambic tetrameter, and the lines that do rhyme are in iambic trimester, linking them together even more closely in sound and meaning. The sound results in an easy rhythm that carries the easy language of the poem. The personification of “immortality” results from its doing an action—unveiling—which connotes surprise and disguise, but is also a distinctly female event, suggesting secrets hidden and enclosure. “Immortality” is the only word with more than two syllables, increasing its importance in meaning, and the many two-syllable words reinforce the event that occurred “twice” to the speaker already. The period that separates the last two lines, which could otherwise be connected with a comma, suggests the distinctness of each thought, and also tends to make the second thought and the last line a very final after-thought. The poem is about loss and sorrow.