TECHNICAL QUALITIES IN THE POETRY OF EMILY DICKINSON

Abstract

Dickinson’s reputation as a poet is based not only on the contents of her poetry but also on her art and technique. No American poet attracted the attention of scholars and critics with his or her technical qualities as Dickinson did. Although, unlike Wordsworth, Matthew Arnold and T.S Eliot, she had no formal theory of poetics for writing poetry but her art and technique of writing poetry have been the subjects of discussion among many critics like James Reeves and Douglas Duncan. It was due to her fastidious nature that she did not learn the secrets of poetic art from any poet or critic. She never had the benefit of accomplished poetic guidance. She wrote to Higginson that so far as the writing of poetry is concerned, she had none to ask. This is why, there are many technical defects in her poetry but these defects are a part of her originality as a poet. She composed by instinct which told her that mechanical regularities disturb the free flow of thoughts. As a poet, she depended on inspiration and in the absence of inspiration, she failed to write good poetry. The following poem is the result of labour and, as such, it does not possess poetic excellence: