There's A Certain Slant of Light by Emily Dickinson: GCSE

There’s a Certain Slant of Light 

Emily Dickinson 1861 

Find out more about Emily Dickinson by watching a documentary about her.

Context: 

Emily Dickinson was a prolific poet who did not want her work to be published. She thought that if her work was bought and paid for, it was like an auction of the mind. However, Dickinson produced hand bound books for herself in order to draw her work together. This desire to keep her work private is reflected in the poem with its theme of isolation and its exploration of the soul of the individual. Brought up a Calvinist*, in adult life she decided to stop attending public worship while still retaining a sense of faith. Her struggle with spirituality is evident in the poem as religion is a key theme. 

*Following the Christian teachings of John Calvin, especially the belief that God controls what happens on earth. Calvinists have very strict moral standards and consider pleasure to be wrong or not necessary.  

Structure: 

Four stanzas with four lines (quatrains) in each.  This metre and rhyme scheme reflects the form found in many hymns and reinforces religious undercurrent. In each stanza the second and fourth lines rhyme. However, enjambment and caesura frequently break up the rhythm as the narrator explores feelings she cannot pin down. The order of the poem is also broken time and time again by the use of dashes which both stop the flow of language and suggest there is much left unsaid as the narrator struggles to order their thoughts and feelings. In the fifth line, the narrator plays with syntax to create a line that seems communicated in reverse order adding to the feeling of discomfort throughout the poem. The poem opens with the imagery of oppressive light and closes on an even darker note as although light is blinding, the alternative is darkness and death. This structure suggests that struggle, despair and isolation are ever present throughout life and this suffering only comes to an end with death.  Although the language is very simple, the meaning is very complex – so much is said with so few words.    

Meaning: 

The poem explores the speaker’s internal conflict over religion, pain and the heaviness of suffering by using the imagery of winter light to create connections with the speaker’s thoughts, understanding, isolation and despair.  The light could refer to faith and the fact that faith sometimes brings heaviness, however, when the light goes, it is even worse. The light could also refer to the sliver of light between two immense darknesses, although the dash at the end of the poem suggests it is about the loss of light, i.e. a psychological state similar to death rather than death itself.  The word “it” is somewhat ambiguous throughout the poem and could refer to both light and faith.  

Point of View: 

First person poem with narrator exploring her internal thoughts.  

Use of Language: 

First stanza 

The light on winter afternoons beams down at a low angle often making it blinding. This becomes a metaphor for how individuals cannot see themselves or the world with clarity and are blind to the truth. Rays of light that stream through the clouds are sometimes referred to as Jacobs Ladders. This biblical allusion gives the poem a subtext to show that the individual is trying to bring definition to their sense of spirituality. The light also has connotations with optimism and the fact that in faith there is light. 

There is great heaviness as light oppresses making it sound like a searchlight bearing down from the sky in a heavy and domineering way. The word “heft” adds to this sensation with its connotations of weight itself and of lifting a heavy weight. The simile “like the heft of cathedral tunes” is the first of many direct religious references and describes the deep heavy sound of religious music and maybe suggests that religion is weighing down on the narrator who is perhaps facing a conflict of faith. The effect of this layering shows the intensity with which the narrator feels the crushing emotions of desolation and despair.  

Second stanza 

Begins with the oxymoron “Heavenly Hurt”, which suggests that even though life brings sufferings it is worth trying to find meanings, otherwise we are nothing. “Meanings” could refer to conflict of faith as the narrator is experiencing internal emotional and psychological turmoil. However, the effect of this leaves “no scar” and cannot be seen.  

Third stanza 

The first line dismisses religion and tells that “none may teach it” showing that individuals have to struggle with emotions and internal thoughts on their own as everyone is different. This evokes the theme of isolation. The line “’Tis the Seal Despair” is a possible reference to the seven Seals in the Book of Revelations, which when broken bring forth pestilence, war, famine and death amongst other things – all of which lead to despair. Despair being a mortal sin to Christians because to be without hope equates to a loss of faith. The word “imperial” has connotations with empires and leaders but also with God and heaven and the word “affliction” suggests an illness maybe sent by God.  

Fourth stanza 

Through the use of capital letters, Landscape and Shadows become personified. The soft sounds in the phrase “Landscape listens” emphasises the silence and shows that nature as a whole as well as the individual is pervaded by the sense of despair that haunts the poem. Through this Dickenson draws a parallel between the external world of landscape and the internal world of the individual.  

Throughout the poem many of the words, e.g. slant, heft, meanings are capitalised. This is to accentuate their significance and importance. 

Themes 

Religion/faith/Spirituality 

Light/Darkness  

Internal Conflict/Emotions 

Despair 

Isolation 

Study Questions

1. Which emotions are emphasised in this poem?
2. Could you identify the extended metaphor that develops during the poem?
3. What role does nature play in the poem?
4. Which poems in the Conflict collection could you compare this poem to?