"It was not Death, for I stood up . . .": "Death" and the Lyrical I

The death topos preoccupied Dickinson throughout her life: in two thirds of some 1700 lyrics that she composed death is mentioned in some way or other. Although death was an event the poet experienced in its full tragic significance on several occasions, the deaths described in her often short, concise lyrics have nothing in common with the idyllic nineteenth-century clichés so popular during the poet's life-time. Dickinson breaks away from these safe frames of reference by developing death into a cogent concept of thought, which she employs as a strategem in the service of representation.

Death is to this poet the only point of reference that moves an individual's existence into focus; to her it offers a focal point against which a person's whole range of physical and spiritual dimensions becomes tangible. In other words, death to Dickinson is a mirror that on the one hand assures the individual of her or his existence, and—on the other hand—can also forcefully compel an individual to acknowledge her or his exposedness to life.

When Dickinson describes the death of another, an opposite, her speaker approaches the consequences from a phenomenological point of view, thereby revealing fundamental insights into the poet's concept of death, insights concerning both immediate aspects of death and features connected with the process of representation. It is against the background of these crucial insights that Dickinson confronts a lyrical I with death: in a first step this confrontation forces the I-speaker to accept the undeniable factuality of her existence. In a second step Dickinson takes the concept further by demonstrating how a speaking I makes use of the imagery offered by the death topos as a method of abandoning given socio-cultural structures and, in this process, experiencing instants of new self-awareness or arriving at a new state of consciousness.¹

Death ends my life

In the various poems presenting the death of another, an opposite, Dickinson is always aware of a person's circumferential disposition; she accepts the limitation death signifies, never seriously questioning its absolutism in the sure knowledge that death is an insurmountable border:

I've seen a Dying EyeRun round and round a Room—

Without disclosing what it be'Twere blessed to have seen—

(P547)²

It is precisely this absolute quality that makes it so compatible with her method; there is no implication of wishing to see beyond, because her consciousness—anchored in the sensual knowledge gained through her perceptual faculties—is fully aware of the boundaries that death sets up. Thus she returns to it not in order to penetrate it, but its inpenetrability is made a prerequisite to fathoming life along lines that only this approach allows. I therefore propose an entirely different interpretation, no longer referring to the poet as morbid, in love with death, seeking death, trying to imagine death, or facing the male in death. Instead Dickinson sees death—and with it all the qualities and dimensions revealed through the presentation of the death of the other—as a means to fathom life along lines other than those experienced in everyday routine.

Dickinson presents various ways in which a speaker reflects upon death as a basic human concern: e.g. when faced with its immediate physical results as displayed in a dying body or a corpse:"A throe upon the features—/ A hurry in the breath—" (P71), "Twas warm—at first—like Us . . . The Forehead copied Stone—" (P519), "No Notice gave She, but a Change—. . . Though Rime by Rime, the steady Frost / Upon her Bosom piled—" (P804). Graves and tombs inspire the speaker as well: "Who occupies this House? . . . 'Tis well the name and age // Are writ upon the Door," (P892), "Sweet-safe-Houses-. . . Sealed so stately tight—/ Lids of Steel—on Lids of Marble—" (P457), "Safe in their Alabaster Chambers—/ Untouched by Morning / And untouched by Noon—" (P216). Notions of loss and absence are also discussed: "To fill a Gap / Insert the Thing that caused it—" (P546), "Some we see no more, Tenements of Wonder" (P1221).^3...