Nature and Emily Dickinson by Michelle

In reading The Wind begun to rock the Grass” written by Emily Dickinson, the theme of nature takes the place of humanity. Quite many of Dickinson’s poems uses nature as metaphors for qualities of humanity ,as well as animal qualities have been attributed to the theme of nature such as leaves having the strength humanity or wind having gender such a being a male. Emily views nature as an imminent danger as well. In the beginning lines of poem “The Wind begun to rock the Grass”, Dickinson writes “The Wind began to rock the Grass/ With threatening Tunes and low/He threw a Menace at the Earth”, Dickinson gives human qualities to the wind such as having a male gender (1-3). Emily expresses nature in many aspects in the poems that she has written, which is similar to the other writers from the nineteenth century such as Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne.

Dickinson inspirations developed through the period of Romanticism, which is that of other writers such as Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne. According to Nina Baym, author of The Norton Anthology American Literature, notes, “Through the national magazines the family subscribed to and books ordered from Boston, she encountered the full range of English and American literature of her time, including among Americans Longfellow, Holmes, Lowell, Hawthorne, and Emerson” (2555). Dickinson’s “The Wind begun to rock the Grass” points out how nature has the qualities to demolish such as humanity, but through the actions of “The Waters wrecked the sky” (1). Dickinson used the personification of the waters as if it were a man causing destruction to some sort of property.

Emily gave characteristic of personification to nature because of the events that took place in her life. She stayed secluded from people and did not have many friends except for her family. Dickinson usually contributed human qualities to her environment. According to Nina, she stated, “Openly expressive of sexual and romantic longings, her personae reject conventional gender roles” (2556). It seems as if Emily was making a connection between humanity and nature and utilizing her surroundings as the characters. Emily’s poems sometimes raise questions about whether she is referring to nature in its own or if she is talking about people in general. In the words of Nina, she points out, “Her [Emily] ‘nature’ poems offer sharp precise observations but, infused with mingled ecstasy and pain, are often as much as about psychological and spiritual matters as about the specifics of nature” (2556).

In conclusion, Emily uses her surroundings which are established as characters in her poems as humanity. Emily represents Nature in its way of humanity and the many ways it was used in the body of the poems. According to Nina, it was stated the “The result was a poetry that, as is typical of the lyric tradition, focused on the speaker’s response to a situation rather than the details of the situation itself” (2556).



Works cited
Baym, Nina. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 7th edition. Volume. A. New York: Norton, 2007. (2555-2556).
Dickinson, Emily. “The wind Begun to rock the Grass.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym. 7th edition. Volume. A. New York: Norton, 2007.