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Religion In Emily Dickinson's Poetry

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The Spiritual Passion of Emily Dickinson Witnessed in Her Life and Poetry
D. Ans Angel Dr.M.Natarajan
PhD Research Scholar Assistant Professor
Department of English and Foreign Languages Department of English and Foreign Languages
Alagappa University Alagappa University
Karaikudi Karaikudi

Emily Dickinson, who always viewed as a rebel against religion orthodoxy by critics, too wrote on spiritual life. The outside world condemns her to be unconventional; her inner experience with the word of God shows her true love for Almighty. She is a practicing spiritualist. Most of her poems talks of the union of human soul with God and the eternal life. The objective of …show more content…

She was a woman of great integrity, purity, conscience and high sense of honour. She wrote of God, man, nature and death that exhibits true face of human life. Even today all her poems convey message to the society. Though Miss Dickinson could not accept the teachings of the church, she still retained unshakable faith in God’s actual reality and continually re-examined older fundamental concepts like the trinity, resurrection, hell, angels and immortality. Her unquenchable thirst for speaking with the redeemer, the creator all alone is expressed in “Some Keep the Sabbath Going to Church”. She does not like to go to church with all rather she wants to be all alone with Christ in orchard. There, Bobolink, a singing bird is a chorister, orchard- a Altar and God- a Preacher. She likes to converse with Him and worship Him without any hindrance. But most of her critics commented on this poem about her escape from church services and the end of her church- going. The truth is, her inner experience with the word of God, I Corinthians 3:16 “Do you not know that you are God’s Temple and that God’s spirit dwells in you?” makes her to see the mortal body as temple of God. She did not escape from the services rather she herself surrendered her life to God and always walked with him. These things are seen in her last …show more content…

She views and examines the mortality and immortality through various moods. The series of death of her family members makes her to see death as a painless one. She looks at the perishable body as a seed that is sown to be raised as imperishable. Thus she writes: Sown in dishonor? Ah! Indeed! May this dishonor be? …………………….. …………………….. Sown in corruption? ……………………. (Single Hound 105)
Here, Emily’s views are similar to St.Paul’s view in Bible. As an evidence, she too quotes “Corinthians I.15, narrates”, what is sown as perishable, is raised imperishable. What is sown in dishonor is raised in

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