Two of my Academic Articles are on Emily Dickinson. There is so much more to her than meets the eye and I found exploring these academic articles I was able to understand her poetry better. It doesn't change my thoughts of her, but it gives me more insight and different ways to think about what many of her poems are about.
In "The Missing All": Emily Dickinson's Apophatic Poetics" the author's thesis is Dickinson's poetry is a form of negative theology. The author refers to"apophasis" (mention something by not mentioning it) throughout the article pertaining to several of her poems. "Negative theology is the kind of apophasis pertaining specifically to God, about whom we can only know (and therefore can only say) what "he" is not. (Franke) By using negative poetic language, Dickinson expresses what are negative theological forms of belief.
In "Suffering and Spirituality in the Poetry of Emily Dickinson" the author's thesis is Emily Dickinson's poetry can define spirituality in a broader sense than religion. He references Dickinson's mental capacity " what seems indisputable from her letters and poems is that she did experience extraordinary psychological distress, and this makes her work doubly germane to clincial conundrums regarding spirituality." (Scheurich)
Works Cited
Franke, William. "The Missing All: Emily Dickinson's Apophatic Poetics." Christianity and Literature 58.1 (2008):71. Academic Serach Elite. EBSCO. Web. 24 Octo. 2010.
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