Emily Dickinson Question Response

Would you label Dickinson as a transcendentalist? Why or why not?


If I were to determine whether Emily Dickinson was a transcendentalist, I would say that she is not. There are many examples in her writtings that reveal that she truly does not follow the ideas of Emerson of Thoreau. Dickinson shows us this in her poem "In Shadow" when she says, "I dared not meet the daffodils, for fear their yellow gown would pierce me with a fashion so foreign to my own." This quotation taken from this poem shows that Dickinson is not a big fan of nature. This idea of disliking nature totally conflicts with the transcendentalist ideas that enforce nature. These ideas of Emerson and Thoreau want the individual to escape from society by going out into nature so that they may find themselves as well as discover their own beliefs. Dickinson also shows this in her 31st poem she writes when she says, "This is my letter to the world, that never wrote to me, the simple news that nature told, with tender majesty." This quotation states that although the world has seen what nature brings, Dickinson has never became involved in what nature has to share.