Introduction
Poets of all cultures have always found an inexhaustible source of inspiration in two primary forms of human existence – life and Death. Poets thank life, admire it, but at the same time feel its finiteness. They see the inevitability and greatness of Death but do not tremble before it. Poetry remains one of the most expressive literary genres because a small form contains many expressive means that allow one to convey what they cannot say in simple words. Thus, the quality of life and Death, and their cyclicity, is a topic explored in great depth by poets of different ages.
Life and Death in Dickinson’s Poem Because I Could Not Stop for Death
Many of Dickinson’s poems contain the motives of life, death, and immortality, which are overarching themes in her poetry. For Emily Dickinson, Death is the beginning of eternal life, and its connection to God and Heaven is a path to immortality. Qiao states, “Dickinson sends the message that Death is Eternity” (159). Even though she was always afraid of the onset of Death, she believed that a person, having died, continues to live in some other world where everything is calm and peaceful. This point of view is represented especially clearly in Because I Could Not Stop for Death. There, Dickinson describes the image of a gentle and kind Death and tries to look through its eyes in her work. In the poem, she imagines when Death comes to her and how calmly she would meet it.
For all its tragedy, death appears to Dickinson as a necessary component in the complex relations of attraction and repulsion between man and nature, body and soul, being and spirit. In Dickinson’s understanding, Death is something majestic and at the same time, inevitable:
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality. (Dickinson “Because I Could Not Stop for Death (479)”; Poetry Foundation, 2020).
The meeting is ceremonial, but like any love game, it contains the possibility of dangerous unpredictability, which is not guaranteed even by the presence of a “third party” – Immortality, who accompanies the couple. Their path lies through the warm and noisy bustle of life, through the cold immobility of the temporary shelter grave, then through the “centuries” – and finally, into Eternity. The theme of cyclicity of life and Death is also closely intertwined with the image of God, which is present in almost every poem by Dickinson. She was, indeed, for all her controversy with Puritanism, a deeply religious person who believed that God always lived next to her. Thus, she had a strong faith in God, but in her way – Dickinson often thought about Death in the context of how good it would be to be next to God.
Dickinson’s poetry is built on contradictions: for her, Death is sometimes beautiful, sometimes terrible, just like the wind is mighty and at the same time dangerous.
In her poems, Death has many faces and guises, but it is so natural, a logical continuation of life, that her poems do not take on any ominous or doom undertones. Death is versatile and ever-changing in Dickinson’s view, as any other natural process of existence. Dickinson does not give categorical, final definitions of it, accepting that Death is unique for every being. The main point of resonance between Death and life lies in her belief in a higher power and eternal life given by God himself.
Life and Death in Walt Whitman’s Poem Song of Myself
The poem Song of Myself is the centerpiece of Whitman’s collection of literary works Leaves of Grass, and, perhaps, his most important poetic creation. Song of Myself has no plot in the conventional sense. It builds upon the presence of a lyrical center, expressed through the personification of both the author and the reader – a lyrical hero. This is the “I” of all people together and each person separately. Whitman writes:
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it,
And ceas’d the moment life appear’d.
All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier. (Whitman, Song of Myself” (7); Poetry Foundation, 2022).
Through his poetry, Walt Whitman discusses not just lyrical but rather philosophical views on the relationship between nature and humanity, the universe, and the place of the life and death cycle in it. He expresses his understanding of this relationship, drawing on the connection between all natural processes. His poetry calls for the restoration of broken harmony for the preservation of the spiritual foundations of human existence through the understanding that life must end with death, and from death, it arises anew. While romanticists sang about the human soul, Whitman spoke about the harmony of soul and body in the cycle of life and death. In Song of Myself, this theme of duality and dialectics occupies an important place. Death is not the end of life – it is merely a new beginning, perhaps, of something even better than the previous existence.
Conclusion
The theme of the cycle of life and death is explored more in Dickinson’s poetry than in Whitman’s, although both have offered an interesting and unique perspective to it. While Because I Could Not Stop for Death emphasizes the eternity of life, even in death, achieved through God, Song of Myself takes a more naturalistic and philosophical approach. The common theme between both is that understanding life and death is crucial for revealing one’s place in the world, and through that, one can reach harmony with the world and discover peace. One should not fear death as it is an inherent part of life, and its’ inevitability only adds meaning to human existence.
Works Cited
Dickinson, Emily. “Because I Could Not Stop for Death (479).” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, 2020, Web.
Qiao, Yang. “Thematic Interpretation of ‘Because I Could Not Stop for Death’ by Emily Dickinson.” 2019 International Conference on Humanities, Cultures, Arts and Design (ICHCAD 2019), 2019, pp. 158–160.
Whitman, Walt. “Song of Myself (1892 Version).” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, 2022, Web.