Abstract
Arachne, maiden of legendary audacity, claimed she could weave more splendidly than the goddess Minerva herself; the challenge ended in self-inflicted death and metamorphosis into a spider-the cunning revenge of the Divine weaver. Dickinson betrays a similar boldness, placing her poems against the most powerful voices for her generation-the poets of Romanticism. Like the Romantics, she writes quest poems, for they seek to complete the voyage, to prove the strength of the imagination against the stubbornness of life, the repression of an antithetical nature, and that hidden mysterythe final territory of death. The form of the poems reflects their subject. She writes poems of radical inquiry,'1 riddles that tease the intelligence or alternatively achieve startling definitions which testify to the authority of her own consciousness. Such authority depends on power, and it is power that lies at the center of Dickinson's relation to Emerson. It is from Emerson that she learns the terms of the struggle and what she needs to conquer-to write poems that win from nature the triumph of freedom for the imagination.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callSimilar Papers
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
