This is My Letter to the World is a poem written by Emily Dickinson. She has written a lot of poems but This is My Letter to the World is a relative short poem with only eight lines. Emily’s poem has deep meaning behind it as she set out to withdraw from the society that has failed to notice her; she writes “This is my letter to the world, That never wrote to me.” She resents and begrudges her visibility as she accuses the world of not communicating with her. She was passing information to the world and lessons on what nature taught her and how the world is not communicating back to her.
Emily Dickinson’s poem is original and innovative. Dickinson has developed her arguments through startling metaphors, imprecise rhymes, and metrical variations. She uses unusual capitalizations of nouns and unconventional punctuations in her poem. Emily uses metrical variations whereby the rhythms in her poem do not slavishly follow a single pattern rather they fluctuate between three and four stresses. In her writing style, Emily refuses to notice the rules of standard grammar as she uses a dash as one of the peculiar visual aspect in her poetry. She used the dash to emphasize a slow pace, to highlight important words and to create a unique atmosphere to the readers a good example is “For love of Her - Sweet - countrymen -” (Gregory 22). In addition, she uses unusual capitalization in her poem to emphasize certain words for example she capitalized majesty in order to emphasize the importance of natures ever changing life.
Emily uses unique literary devices to portray her thoughts to her readers. The examples of these literary elements in the poem are: symbolism, figurative language, and personification. Symbolism whereby she uses a letter as recognition of her isolation to the world. She used the letter as means of communication and to symbolize that she cannot talk directly to the world because she is isolated from them. The letter symbolizes her only contact to the world that has isolated her. Another form of symbolism is when she says “The simple news that Nature told” (Dickinson stanza 3), this is to symbolize the changes in nature during the time she was isolated. Personification in her poem can be seen through her statements “Her message is committed to hands I cannot see” and “The simple news that Nature told with tender majesty” (Dickinson 24). Furthermore, Emily used slant rhyme in her poem for example "world" and "told" which gives the poem a rhythm that flows. In addition, Emily uses a figurative language when she writes "This is my Letter to the World" (Dickinson stanza1) and capitalizes them for emphasis.
In the poem This is My Letter to the World, Emily is trying to explain how she is secluded and the world does not seem to reach out for her. The theme of the poem is that people are to judge by the truth if they were to judge. Emily does not want to be judged harshly for separating from the world, all she wants is just to belong. Emily speaks for herself to the world with a mood of loneliness and realization. Emily uses poetry to describe her inner world. Emily’s poem is precise and careful and she uses literary devices and deep meaning in her poem leading to many wonderful things in the realm of art. Through her introduction “This is My Letter to the World,” she wanted people to enjoy her poem. Through her poem, Emily showed depth and meaning to her readers with the hope of relating to others and not being secluded.
Works Cited
Dickinson, Emily. My Letter to the World and Other Poems. Toronto, Ontario: Kids Can Press, Ltd, 2008. Print.
Gregory, Brian. My Letter to the World and Other Poems. (Visions in Poetry). Canadian Review of Materials 15.4 (2008): 22. Print.
