The focal point of the paper is to present a Comparison and Contrast essay between the poems, “I Felt a Funeral in My Brain“, by Emily Dickinson and “The Widow’s Lament in Spring Time“, by William Carlos Williams. The paper would look into the parameters of the inner world of the poets in the context of three different elements viz. symbolism, form and theme. It should be noted that both the poets championed the essence of death in their respective poems with similar symbolism, form and theme, however, the execution of each poem is different.
Symbolism in William Carlos Williams’ poem appears as a natural presence through “trees of white flowers” (Williams, 96) or “The plumtree is white today with masses of flowers.” (Williams, 96) Here a death or grief is represented by white flowers and it symbolizes the passing away of a loved one with the lack of color. Emily Dickinson, similarly, invites death onto her and the word ‘funeral’ itself acts as the fundamental symbolism of death in her poem. The moment she utters the first stanza “I felt a funeral in my brain,/ And mourners, to and fro,/ Kept treading, treading, till it seemed/ That sense was breaking through.” (Dickinson, 134) it becomes clear that the description of the funeral itself is the symbolism of death and the entire process of death is being carried out inside the poet’s mind or inner self.
In the context of form in the poem by Emily Dickinson, the overall concept or formulation of the poem indicates the transaction of life into death where death can be personified quite well. Here death seems to accompany her to eternity in the last stanza however the journey into eternity is more of an assumption than belief. While reading this poem of Dickinson as with most of her works we cannot fail to notice the sense of exclusion that the poet evokes in her reader. Similarly, William Carlos Williams’ poems stabilized themselves on the opposite pole of the likes of Ezra Pound’s and especially T.S. Eliot’s whose poetry depicted recurrent use of reference to foreign art, religion, history or languages. He focused himself predominantly on local themes for his poems and with this smell of well know home court it is but impossible to be anything else but sincere. He was, all his life, sincere to his roots, his works and thereby to his poems as this poem “The Widow’s Lament in Spring Time” reflects.
The basic theme in the poem “I Felt a Funeral in My Brain“, by Emily Dickinson, represents the farewell to life or death. According to Thomas H. Johnson Death here in this poem appears as “one of the great characters of literature.” (Johnson, 24) This theme is represented in the poem by the use of highly skillful lines like “As all the heavens were a bell,/ And Being but an ear,/ And I and silence some strange race,/ Wrecked, solitary, here.” (Dickinson, 134) This is, however, a romantic take on death as a theme. On the other hand, William Carlos Williams’ poems place his theme with a much more simplistic and less romantic manner with direct notations of stanzas like “Thirty five years/ I lived with my husband./ The plumtree is white today/ with masses of flowers.” (Williams, 96) It is clear that these lines speak of a much direct take on the theme of death. Though there are differences in style both the poets are successful in composing and executing the fundamental theme of death with remarkable success.
In conclusion, it would be relevant to state that both the poets, Emily Dickinson and William Carlos Williams, are truly representative authors of their time, and the manner they presented the poems speaks volumes about their abilities as a poet. It is no wonder that these two poets were considered to be the most prominent poets of the era. Through they possessed contrasting psyches and they presented their poems differently, it is obvious from the discussion that while presenting death in their respective poems they are extremely successful in their own ways, and thus they are similar in approach within the canvas of the subject of death.
Works Cited
Dickinson, Emily. The Complete Works of Emily Dickinson. Auckland: National Book Trust, 2001.
Johnson, Thomas. The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Auckland: National Book Trust, 2005.
Williams, William C. Poems. Christchurch: IPL Ltd. 1999.