Emily Dickinson as a Mystic Poet

Emily Dickinson as a Mystic Poet

Emily Dickinson is obviously a mystic poet. The themes that a mystic poet deals with are concerning God, soul, immortality, the union of the human soul with the Divine. Emily Dickinson deals with all these themes in a good number of poems. But before we determine her as a mystic poet, we should define mysticism first, and in the light of the definition, we should decide about Dickinson's mysticism.

Emily Dickinson as a Mystic Poet

Different religions define mysticism or have ideas of mysticism in different ways. We cannot go into the details of them all. However, The Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary defines mysticism as,

"The belief that knowledge of God and real truth can be found through prayer and meditation, rather than through reason and through the senses". But many thinkers look upon mysticism in different ways.

God And Religion

But Dickinson's mysticism conceptions. It is a unique form. Dickinson has apprehension conforms to none of their presence of God in Nature. She ponders on the questions of life and death on the nature of the human soul, and the existence of the soul after bodily death, and soul's relations with Nature and God. She believes in the immortality of the soul, and its very existence before the birth of a person in the bodily form. We can have a clear idea of her mystic conception from her attitude to God, death, and immortality of the soul.

Devine Love

Her views about God are expressed in a good number of poems. She often talks about divine love in terms of sexual love. She believes that the entire universe overflows with love and beauty and that this love and beauty are but a reflection of the Divine whose attributes they are. Divine love is the culmination of all spiritual attainments, and marriage with Christ is the only means of attaining eternity and immortality.

Treatment to Death 

Death is the gateway to the Divine and to immortality, and hence death is to be welcomed rather than shunned. At every step we find Dickinson probing into the mystery of death.

So, it is evident that Dickinson is a mystic poet with her views on soul, soul's relation with God, and death as a gateway to union with God.

"I taste a liquor never brewed" employs a symbol of wine that has never been brewed. Through such a wine she wants to achieve the stature of an immensely big celestial being to whom even the sum is a lamp-post. Her stature is then admired by the seraphs and saints. This aspiration to rise to gigantic spiritual stature sounds like one of her notes of mysticism.

Her attitude to death is mystical. She believes that immortality of the soul can be achieved through dissolution, decay, and death of the body. Death is a kind of life that is new, and life, as it is lived here, is a sort of death.

Attitude to Nature

Her attitude to Nature is also mystical. She indicates that the external objects of Nature do not constitute the knowledge of Nature's mysteries. She deals with natural objects like the sun and other celestial bodies, the seasons, especially spring and summer, and the birds and the insects forming part of Nature.

Attitude to Immortality

Dickinson has a mystical attitude to immortality. The poem "Behind Me Dips Eternity" deals with her notion of immortality. She looks towards the cast as the source of light and life, and towards the west as the soul's ultimate destination, and fixes her attention on the dark span in between. Over the horizon dips eternity, and in front looms immortality.

Conclusion

Dickinson is thus seen clearly as a mystic poet, in her attitude to Nature, her relationship with God, and her conception of eternity and immortality of the soul.