February 22, 2023
From Gerald R. Lucas
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Because I could not stop for Death,  |
reference
- ↑ Many suggest that Dickinson’s poem, No. 712, is a Christian poem since the narrator personifies both Death and Immortality, as if these two metaphysical companions accompany the narrator into eternity. Yet, while there does seem to be this hope, the poem expresses an anxiety in waiting: as if the poet watches her persona die, but has yet herself to reach immortality herself, literally or course, but her figurative implication dominates. The horses look toward eternity, but they have not reached it, nor has the one side of the narrator’s perspective. Perhaps “eternity” remainds forever out of reach for the poet/narrator. Seriously, her grave-house in the fourth stanza is pretty damn frightening.
However, Dickinson’s calm tone does seem to support the idea that Death is nothing to fear. Notice, too, the cyclical images of life and nature and time seem to suggest a continuity, a hope perhaps of a promise in death that suggests eternity at least.
