21 pages • 42 minutes read
Emily DickinsonThere's A Certain Slant Of Light
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1890A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Transformation
The transformation at the center of this poem embodies the speaker’s conflicting feelings about changes. The internal change they experience is illuminating but also bewildering. It causes pain, but it is essential. The beam of light the speaker is reflecting on encapsulates this experience, and her description of it reveals that. Light, often associated with knowledge and truth, illuminates the speaker and disperses the darkness of ignorance. The “Heft” (Line 3) of the light emphasizes the contradictory way it has weight while also uplifting the speaker. The light does not weigh the speaker down but rather lifts them toward a heavenly afterlife.
In addition, the speaker describes how this transformation cannot be taught. These “Meanings” (Line 8), while transformative, are difficult for the speaker to understand. However, by connecting it to the natural landscape, the speaker emphasizes the natural aspect of the change they are experiencing. For the speaker, their new awareness seems to even transform the world around them.
Nature and Religion
Initially, it seems as if this poem will simply be a description of the light of “Winter Afternoons” (Line 2). But at the end of the stanza, the speaker connects this natural phenomenon to a religious experience. The light makes the speaker feel as if God is sending them a message, as nature is the way that God’s will can be expressed.
The third stanza emphasizes this connection even more explicitly. God is an emperor who sends messages of an “imperial affliction” from “the Air” (Lines 11, 12), a common image in the 19th century. For the speaker, this feeling of despair is part of the message from God.
The final stanza builds upon this connection. Nature stops so the speaker can hear the message. The “Landscape listens” (Line 13) and “Shadows — hold their breath” (Line 14) when the light comes. This message allows nature to come alive, as reflected in the speaker’s use of personification. When it leaves, nature becomes distant, like the dead look in a corpse’s eyes.
This understanding of religion and nature reflects Dickinson’s Romantic and Transcendentalist tendencies.
Despair
The speaker wrestles with the despair they are feeling. On one hand, the speaker feels isolated and alienated. The speaker is alone, and there are no other humans in the poem. The unspecified setting also contributes to this sense of isolation. As a result, it initially seems like the speaker may be describing their experiences with depression, especially since the poem seems to be set on a winter afternoon.
The symbolic associations between winter and death support a more spiritual understanding of despair. The afternoon light on a winter day is weak and waning. In this way, the light makes the speaker reflect on the fleeting quality of life. The speaker’s feeling of despair results from their understanding that death is inevitable. Yet the speaker’s Christian faith causes them to despair in a way that causes “Heavenly Hurt” (Line 5). This paradoxical feeling reflects the speaker’s contradictory feelings about their relationship with God and the afterlife. Despair, then, is the mixture of both joy and fear, pleasure and pain.
The speaker emphasizes their powerlessness in the face of despair by connecting this “imperial affliction” (Line 11) to an order that cannot be disobeyed. The speaker feels as if they must remain passive and receptive. Yet when despair lifts, God feels distant.
The speaker’s assertion that despair is in some way necessary is a bold claim, as it contradicts the religious theology of Dickinson’s church. Despair was a grave sin, and Dickinson’s consideration of it as a more complex feeling may partially explain why she did not regularly attend formal church services. Instead, like other Transcendentalists, Dickinson preferred to worship in her own way to create an individualized relationship with God.
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By Emily Dickinson
