Emily Dickinson Criticism

Emily Dickinson was an eccentric lady who for the majority of her life was a recluse. She never went outside or talked to people but rather she stayed bottled up. Most of the poetry Dickinson wrote was about her observations on human life. She could not right about what she did or felt because she stayed in side so much, so rather than a poem about talking to a man she writes about watching a man and woman talk. This fact gives her poems a very distinct personality to them, they are pretty unique in how they are written. The poem He ate and drank the precious words is poem written by Emily Dickinson. The poem HE ate and drank the precious words is a poem about a man who presume listen to a speaker, maybe a patriot or maybe a clergymen. The man is overcome by the words of the speaker. He forgets his troubles, he is poor and frail, "He danced along the dingy days,"(Dickinson) as the story says. "And this bequest of wings
Was but a book. What liberty
A loosened spirit brings!"(Dickinson) This last sentence makes me think that the man is more taken by a reverend or a pastor than by like a patriotic person. Dickinson says " Was but a book..."(Dickinson) Whenever I think of something having a life changing event and there is a book involved I assume the Bible. Especially at the time that Dickinson wrote this the country was greatly religious. Everyone went to church and prayed. There was no Bloom's Criticism on this poem so I do not have much to compare my criticism too. Dickinson used really good imagery, when she wrote "He danced along the dingy days," (Dickinson) I can imagine the person who is always happy and go-lucky even when the day for you or I is supper crummy. That person who can always see the silver lining to any cloud. I suppose you could also think that the poem is a man getting drunk. Since Dickinson mentions spirits so many times as well as how he ate and drank them. The man could be forgetting his troubles just as easy with liquor in his hand as he could by becoming motivated and captivated by a cause form a speaker. Though in my opinion this poem was meant to be taken more literal and really does not have a hidden meaning like some other poets poems always seemed to *cough* Whitman *cough* Dickinson was a very straight foreword poet who just liked to write about her little observations that she made from his window. Dickinson had some pretty cool poems and pretty interesting observations about people and human nature from how she saw the people react with each other.

Dickinson, Emily. The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Boston: Little, Brown, 1924; Bartleby.com, 2000. www.bartleby.com/113/. [March 23, 2011].