emily dickinson

Can Emily Dickinson be an anti-transcendentalist with hope? I believe that she is an anti-transcendentalist with hope. In many of her poems like "This Is My Letter to the World", she sounded a bit pessimistic and morbid. But later on in her poems like ""Faith"Is a Fine Invention" and ""Hope"Is the Thing with Feathers" clearly presents Dickinson as an individual with optimism and transcendental beliefs. She seems like she was saying that if we have hope, we will go very far, as far as we limit ourselves. She seems to believe that there is something worth hoping for. Dickinson makes apparent through her writing that she believes "thoughts create reality". Also in "I Never Saw a Moor", she clearly presents her transcendentalist beliefs because she is saying that she believes/trusts in her intuition and spontaneity. Although she hasn't been exposed to the Moor, or the sea, she can still knowit; just as she has never spoken with God, but she can still connect with the divine power/higher Being/God. She doesn't need pragmatic evidence or tangible proof. Dickinson seems to possess strong transcendental values here. "The Soul Selects Her Own Society" is basically reflecting fundamental transcendentalist philosophy. She was communicating the importance of self-reliance and self-trust. I'm uncertain but i believe Dickinson is a transcendentalist because she seems like she supports individuality, although she is gloomy and depressed sometimes. Perhaps Dickinson was always a transcendentalist at heart, but because of her shy personality and physical environment, she only seemed to be an anti-transcendentalist.

stephsquared wrote:Can Emily Dickinson be an anti-transcendentalist with hope? I believe that she is an anti-transcendentalist with hope.

Your ideas and interpretations are all pretty good, but I think you should lose the black and white thought here. You haven't stated it directly, but this is kinda what you implied: Anti-Transcendentalists are pessimistic and usually don't have much hope.

If that really is what you're thinking then I want to say that Anti people were being realistic in regards tot he physical world, they weren't being pessimistic, just trying to see things as they really were in our physical reality. Unlimited thought is great but it can't all be made to happen in this plane, our world still has limits. Being realistic and aiming lower than Transcendentalists doesn't mean that they are devoid of hope or happiness, they can still find joy and hope in the world, just in smaller increments or shorter lengths.

And if it's not what you were thinking, sorry for the misunderstanding xD