Free Argumentative Essay On Emily Dickinson’s Need For Poetic Truth

Poetry is a hard thing to identify. It hides itself sometimes. We know it when we feel it. The truth has a similar nature. Perhaps, it is even harder to define. It presents itself in contradictions. It is overwhelming, fleeting, and possibly dangerous. We claim to know the truth, but cannot explain it. By the time we even get a sense of our intuition, the feeling is usually gone. How could we write about something so ghostly? Emily Dickinson comprehends this dilemma. In her poem, Tell all the Truth but tell it slant –, Dickinson shows the reader how poetry and the truth relate. She feels that poetry is necessary, if we want to write about the truth. Specifically, Dickinson uses metaphor, capitalization, and oxymoron to illustrate that poetry is necessary when we try to express truth through language.
Dickinson uses capitalization to invite the audience to explore certain words more deeply, which demonstrates the power of poetry. When we see the capitalized words we start to play mind games as we read. The audience immediately connects with the piece at a deeper level than we would if the author wasn’t allowed to play. In other words, the literary flexibility of poetry allows the author to express herself in ways that would be inaccessible otherwise. The word “Circuit” is a very good example. By capitalizing “Circuit”, Dickinson creates a circuitous trip to the next line, as we wonder what she meant. Rather than breezing through the piece, the audience must take trips of confusion. Leiter’s analysis reminds us that a circuit is a defined path, “Circuit is the path to the center the reader must travel to reach what can be known about the center” (Leiter 180). This is also the case when we try to grasp complex truths. Even though we might feel truths immediately, we must take a journey if we want to try and understand that which we know is unknowable. It seems impossible to write about these feelings without poetic language and contradiction.
This poem also uses metaphor to demonstrate the necessity of literary language when we talk about truth. By comparing the truth to lightning, Dickinson brings the reader towards a moment. We all know the moment when lightning crashes bright, fleeting, surprising, and immediately incomprehensible. The first read through a poem can feel like this too. Eventually as we try to understand the poem we will have different moments of clarity. These moments of clarity are also bright, fleeting, and maybe a little bit dangerous too. The more we slow down the lightning like thinking process, the more we can understand our flashes of intuition. However, the moment in itself will never be fully captured. So, we must compare our experience to what we physically know. We must create metaphor. By creating metaphor we bring the experience closer to our senses, closer to our immediate reality that makes more sense to us.
Finally, Dickinson uses oxymoron to show us its power and necessity. It’s hard to imagine enjoying sickness, but we all understand how truth can be an “infirm Delight”. Don’t we cry when we are too happy? There are many moments in life that are contradictory, but make sense. There are moments that are logically illogical. Dickinson recognizes that we need oxymoron to comprehend the absurd. Certainly the truth and the absurd tend to go together. Johnson claims that Dickinson pursues the unknowable, despite the inherent contradiction, “She knew that she could not pierce through to the unknowable, but she insisted on asking the questions” (Johnson x). How could you express these notions without literary language? In order for the artist to explain the unknowable, she must attempt to access it, and describe it. If she wants to describe the indescribable with words, she must use poetic language.
So Dickinson shows us that we must use poetic language if we want to approach absolute truth. She accomplishes this by using metaphor, punctuation, and oxymoron. These classic literary devices allow her to approach the ineffable qualities of truth through language. It might be impossible to express absolute truth. If we are going to get close to it, we need to be willing to travel and deal in contradictions. Poetry is a medium that loves contradiction. It might be our most useful tool when we are staring at the unknowable. Dickinson shows us that poetry is not just a luxury. It is a necessity.

Works Cited

Dickinson, Emily. “427.” Final Harvest Emily Dickinson’s Poems. Ed. Thomas H. Johnson. Boston: Little, Brown And Company, 1961. 248-249. Print.
Johnson, Thomas H. The Vision and Veto of Emily Dickinson. Final Harvest Emily Dickinson’s Poems. By Johnson. Boston: Little, Brown And Company, 1961. vii-xiv. Print.
Leiter, Sharon. Emily Dickinson A Literary Reference to Her Life and Work. New York: Facts On File, 2007. Print.