Helen Vendler’s list of thirteen ways of exploring a poem can be found in her book, “Poems, Poets, Poetry: An Introduction and Anthony”, on page 134. She describes these directions as a guide for one’s exploration through poetry that is useful in describing the poem itself.
The first way of describing a poem is the meaning. Vendler describes meaning as a paraphrase in prose of the general outline of the poem, or the basic story that it suggests. In Dickinson’s poem the meaning centers on death, and also the personification; Death. Generally, the speaker is describing her travel with the embodied Death through her life in retrospect on her way to wherever it may be that Death is taking her. Proof is found within the first two lines, as the speaker notes that Death stopped for her, and in the second stanza describes as they drove away, while the rest of the poem suggests that it was perhaps the speaker’s lifelong memories of school, and the gazing grain could be a metaphor of mid-life, and the setting sun being her life’s conclusion.
Understanding Vendler, the antecedent scenario is what has been happening before the poem begins. It gives insight to what has provoked the speaker into expression, and perhaps is what the poem is about, or perhaps the calm after whatever the episode may have been. Vendler asks how would this previous situation affect the speaker? Knowing that the speaker is on a carriage with Death, than it must be understood that the speaker has died, of what is a mystery. Also available in the poem is the idea the speaker has recently died, only because she has just gotten on the carriage and is on her way to the afterlife. Another detail to the antecedent is that the speaker did not want to die, and instead it was Death who is after her and her not dieing when she should have, this can be seen in the title since she could not stop to die, therefore death comes to her.
Number eight on Vendler’s list is language. Language can be known as the contexts of diction, the chains of significant relation, how are parts of speech highlighted to show importance, as well as the tenses, and so on. It is obvious in many of Dickinson’s poems, as well as this one, that she capitalizes a lot of her words that other poets, or anyone would not. This could be because Dickinson herself felt that the words needed to be emphasized for personal reasons, or if it were to be read aloud that the reader would put more emphasize on those words. One could argue that the capitalized words show a proper noun, for instance the carriage from line three may not be just a carriage, but Death’s carriage, which could be a symbol of Charon’s Boat which mythologically speaking, brings the dead across the River Styx. Most importantly on the issue of language in this poem is when it is used to denote the story that is being told. The aspects of the story are in linear time that is as you read the time in the poem is represented. Proved since Death first picked her up, then she drove by the school, she got a chill, and then they ended up at the end of the line. Knowing that the poem itself shares more detail of the events, it is noted that these events do take place one after another giving the reader a sense of time in the poem.
Vendler also notes that the tone of a poem is also significant to the reader in understanding the poem. Tone gives way to the emotion that is evoked in the poem; it truly allows the speaker to have a voice for the reader to understand, emotionally. In “Because I could not stop for Death—” the tone denotes a powerful sullen expression. Words such as death, setting sun, and chill are just a few of the dark impressions that one gets while reading this poem.
The imagination that the poem creates is also important part in, not only understanding a poem, but also poetry itself. Vender asks what has a poem invented in the reader as new, striking, and memorable. Perhaps this junction of understanding the poem will come independently to each reader. However a subjective idea that one may express uses the idea of Death coming to get a person to bring them to an afterlife. It may be understood from the poem will give insight to those wondering what life is after death.
Furthermore the formal elements affect the meaning of a poem as well. Line and stanza breaks can help the reader, or extend the poems understanding in if anything the subtle ways of understanding poetry. Generally speaking, the layout of the poem may not give you the meaning of the poem, but will solidify your understanding as you interpret freely. The layout of this poem is full of hyphens after practically each line, and again the capitalized words, as well as having four lines to each stanza, and lastly noting that the only sentence in the whole poem is the first stanza, after that there are no other sentences only thoughts, because there is no more periods throughout the poem.
Another formal element is the rhythm of the poem. Dickinson’s poem is what may be called unorthodox when it comes to rhyme schemes. Though she does not show a definite scheme, certain words do play off each other. For example, the use of immortality, civility, and eternity each being at the end of certain stanzas allows one to think that Dickinson was using the sounds of the word, rather than just the meaning.
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly is the figurative language used in the poem. Different from non-figurate language that was discussed above, figurative language demands your mind’s eye interpretation. It is in no way a standard type of language but mostly depends on the readers themselves, because it is up to each reader to interpret what the figurative language means to them. There are three strong uses of figurative language in Emily’s “Because I could not stop for Death—“. They are the use of the words immortality, setting sun, and lastly the house that seems like a swelling of the ground. Immortality is thought of as figurative because the reader will ask if she is immortal or dead. In this instance however the reader is dead, but her spirit will live on immortal. Next, the setting sun in the third stanza is used to denote, as mentioned above, the idea of the day coming to a close, as the speaker’s life is also coming to a close. Finally, the house swelling in the ground can be nothing but a mausoleum for the language elicits the understanding of a mausoleum, the house was like a swelling or hill of the ground, a scarcely visible roof, and the cornice is actually in the ground.
Again, Emily Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for Death—“ is a poem. Using Helen Vendler’s list of ways to explore a poem this poem is more clearly understood, and while examining the more formal aspects the poem it can be even greater understood. All in all meaning, antecedent scenario, language, tone, imagination, line and stanza breaks, choice of rhythm and rhyme schemes, and figurative language all support the idea that this is a poem and define why it is an excellent poem at that.
