Paper Summary:

This paper examines the techniques employed by Emily Dickinson in the poems "I Dwell in Possibility" and "They Shut me up in Prose." The paper examines the author's background as an orthodox Calvinist and examines the effect that her childhood religious influences had on her poetry. The essay makes the point that Dickinson's poetry was often a vehicle for her criticisms about organized religion and the role of the church. Both poems are cited within the essay.

From the Paper:

"The limitlessness of the imagination is symbolized in both poems by metaphors that represent the power of creativity and how it can be spiritually enlightening. By relating the ordinary to the extraordinary, Dickinson shows the power of the mind to see beyond the mundane and find deeper meaning within it. The house in "I dwell in Possibility-" is portrayed as ethereal and divine. The roof is "Everlasting" and it has "Gambrels of the Sky" (7 - 8). The roof is described as being impossibly tall, reaching up towards the sky, symbolic of the imagination's ability to find spirituality within everyday existence. In the poem, she also is figuratively able to hold Heaven in her hands: "The spreading wide my narrow Hands/ to gather Paradise - "(11 - 12)."

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