The Ecstasy of Mere Living: "Time's Possibility" in the Poetry of Emily Dickinson

Abstract:Time in Emily Dickinson's poetry is a many-sided concept that must be understood, not just in terms of the images and metaphors Dickinson uses to represent it, but also in terms of the poetic effects that it makes possible: variations in syntax, progressions of imagery and metaphor, plays with the expectation and resolution of sound and meter. Thinking about time in this way complicates its usual depiction in criticism as a trap to be escaped or a lesser state to be surpassed by immortality. "Time's possibility" lies in the fact that, in the lexicon of human experience, it is the field that makes experience and growth possible, granting relief and renewal even when, at times, it feels entrapping.