The Poetry of Emily Dickinson: A Study in Her Christian Philosophy by Joby Thomas Chirayath (review)

Emily Dickinson's poetry has the potential ingredients to occupy a prominent place in Asian literary studies, especially on the Indian sub-continent. The poetic themes of eternity, suffering, absence, distance, hunger and thirst, pilgrimage and the like resonate with the Eastern mindset. Dickinson's effort to write and save her poems for future generations, her experiments with handwriting, and above all, the ascetic lifestyle described in some poems have inspired many people. Poems like "Success is counted sweetest" (Fr112), "Because I could not stop for Death - " (Fr479), and a few others are available in textbooks. But the general unavailability of the poems is a real hindrance for popular readership. Very few libraries have copies of the Johnson or Franklin versions of the complete poems. The upcoming bicentennial of Dickinson's birth could provide an occasion to enhance readership in India and elsewhere by encouraging global awareness of her work. My PhD dissertation approaches Dickinson's poems from a perspective that provides more clarity of context and meaning.

This dissertation addresses the question of how Christian philosophy is elucidated in Emily Dickinson's poems. I argue that Dickinson focuses on eschatological themes in her poetry, especially death, burial, waiting in the tomb, judgment, immortality, and heaven. Her poems largely deal with death because it is a border experience between this life and the next. The idea of waiting in the tomb is her unique concept in which the static waiting of early poems gradually develops into dynamic waiting in her later poems. Time in the tomb becomes a part of an extended existence representing the next stage of being. Dickinson's philosophy of life derives from this eschatological outlook. Life is a pilgrimage on earth and contains mysterious aspects. In spite of her Emersonian influences, Dickinson depicts a trinitarian God. She believes and accepts Jesus's salvific nature of suffering, death, and resurrection based on the integrity of his personal life. The King James Version of the Bible was both a book of faith and a treasure house for her poetic imagery. Her poetic lines are rich with the foundational stone jewels of the book of Revelation. While dealing with biblical characters, she exhibits their human qualities rather than superhuman or divine gifts and powers. Her view of nature is also related to her Christian philosophy. In nature, she tries to read an assurance of immortality. She searches for signs of ultimate truth in nature. We can also trace mystical Christian tendencies and attitudes in Dickinson's poems. She experienced the elementary stage of the mystical way. Her poetic term "circumference" expresses her genuine attempts to reach the possible borders of the mystery of reality. She accepted religious dogmas and redefined some of them with her intuitions about faith and poetry. I conclude the dissertation by observing that the Christian philosophy formed in the mind of Dickinson exponentially bolstered her meditations upon transcendental mysteries, especially the eschatological notions that she expressed through the medium of poetry.