Immortality In Emily Dickinson's Poetry

“Unable are the loved to die, for love is immortality.” Emily Dickinson lives on in the minds of people who love her and her poetry, even though she never sought the immortality that comes with fame. Dickinson had a very humble and religious upbringing, causing her to reject the idea of God but not entirely abandon the way she was taught to live and think. She lived a reclusive life in her family’s house, alone with her thoughts and emotions. Her failed love affair gave her the knowledge that love can be sweet while you have it, but can turn into a bitter end. This caused Dickinson to stay away from social occasions and instead write about how she saw people. She saw how people dedicated their entire lives to achieving “immortality” or how people acted certain ways because society …show more content…
Poems that portray thoughts like these were becoming common with the transcendentalist movement of the time. Many of the poets of the era were meditating and writing poems about how they saw the world. Emily Dickinson’s poetry was effective because she drew from her own experiences to take the reader through a rollercoaster of emotions while also creating a commentary on society and how people live their lives. Emily Dickinson’s poetry was influenced by her religious upbringing and reclusiveness. The Dickinson family was very strict and puritan. The harsh, religious lifestyle led to her agnostic beliefs later in life, for Dickinson hated the idea of a vengeful God. Despite this, her poetry constantly references the Bible and Christian beliefs (Napierkowski). Her poem Because I Could Not Stop for Death references the typical Christian belief of life after death. The lines “The Carriage held but just Ourselves— And Immortality” shows the belief in immortality once you have died. Dickinson’s poetry tended to grasp onto these beliefs very strongly while she still called herself an agnostic. Also, her poetry was lyrical in ways that reflected the