Emily Dickinson

Was emily dickinson a transcendentalist? Lets see''

In her writing, she showed some transcendentalist values. She talked about nature, as shown in her poems I Never Saw a Moor, and "Hope" Is The Thing with Feathers. In these poems, she shows transcendentalist values, and also shows some believe in unlimited potential, although that is mainly shows through I Never Saw a Moor.

However, many people don't agree, because of the way she lived, how she had lived in that single room for many years. To counter this point, lets read Emily Dickinson's bio. When she was young, Emily Dickinson lived just like any young Amherst girl, its not like she was gloomy or anything like that. She even wrote letters that showed that she had high spirits, which is definitely not like an anti-transcendentalist, who believe that people can be corrupted, and who, on a whole, seem more...pessimistic.

However, this began to change in the year, 1862. This year, her love, Charles Wadsworth, did not return her love, and also left her home town. It was at this time, that she began to write more poems, maybe as a way to block out her feelings, or as a way to get rid of them. It was also in this year that she became the "locked in a room Emily" that most people know her as. At this time, it seems that Emily Dickinson shifted to the anti-transcendentalist viewpoint. The dark events of her life led her to becoming an anti-transcendentalist.

Another way that we can see this change is in the tone and mood of her poems. Her early poems give off a happier tone, and lighter mood than her later poems. The way the book sets up her poems, the poems are placed in a way that allows the lighter mood to be at the front, such as I Never Saw a Moor, until it evolves into Because i Could Not Stop Death.

So, this discussion (by me ) leads me to say that from the beginning until the middle of her life, Emily Dickinson was a transcendentalist, but at the end of her life, she was a transcendentalist. She is placed at the end of the unit, which shows that maybe she did not show any one virtue of transcendentalism or anti-transcendentalism, but was, in a way, both transcendentalist and anti-transcendentalist, or should be placed between each one, because she is not one or the other

Honestly, no one is either one or the other. Everyone is a mix of both. Because, seriously, have you ever met someone who was absolutely always optimistic about everything, who could not be hindered by their mind, their negative feelings, and etc?

I agree, though, to your post

Well, i do believe that some people show more transcendentalist than anti-transcendentalist. I don't think anyone is one or the other, but are classified as one or another by the degree that they show of the values