Searching for Scars. An interpretation of Emily Dickinson's poem 258 "There's a certain Slant of light"

Simone Kurz

Nov 2005 · GRIN Verlag

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Seminar paper from the year 2002 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3 (A-), University of Heidelberg, course: American Poetry: Romanticism, language: English, abstract: To interpret Dickinson will stay a challenge and a never-ending task. Her poems are so deep and full of meaning that every word in them carries the multiple of its normal weight; her poems are at the same time precise and not precise at all. If we try to pin them down to a specific meaning it seems to lose some of its colorful variety, which in some of her poems is even visible by Dickinson's practice of leaving alternative word choices next to each other without choosing one. Robert Weisbuch gives in his essay "Prisming Dickinson; or, Gathering Paradise by Letting Go"1the helpful triple advice: "Don't point; don't pry; don't settle for one truth." In order to analyze Dickinson’s poem #258 "There's a certain Slant of light " I could not help to disregard the advice "don't pry", and I did my best to at least not pin down the things I pointed, and I was careful not to "settle for one truth". Emily Dickinson's words shine in various colors and so do the possible interpretations. Her poems might tell every person something else. In this essay will analyze her poem #258, give possible interpretations of it and demonstrate what it tells me without clouding its shine.