Death, Life and Emily Dickinson - Annotated Bibliography Example

While it was something that is feared, Dickinson made it seem appealing. Baker makes it known that the carriage ride taken by the protagonist, the one from the living world to the protagonist’s final resting place, is a comfortable ride since it is done in a carriage rather than in a hearse. Emily Dickinson’s poems are kept together in this anthology. Originally a three-volume set, this book contains all of the poems ever written by Dickinson. Unlike Dickinson and Vendler’s book, which contains commentaries and insights on the poems that were made by Vendler, this book by Dickinson only contains the poems themselves, allowing the reader to comprehend each poem, find their own insights, and come to their own conclusions.

This book was a vital source to the research paper as it offered easy access to the poems that were to be analyzed in my paper. “I Felt a Funeral in My Brain (97)” was the poem taken from this book; while it is one of Dickinson’s more famous poems, it was difficult to find in any other source besides the Internet. I was able to use the source to locate this poem and implement it into my essay about life and death themes in Dickinson’s works. Helen Vendler comments on selected poems of Emily Dickinson, the poems of whom are also included in this book.

Vendler has made a career for herself by critically reading and analyzing the poems of many writers, including Dickinson, paying special attention to the style and imaginative elements of each poem. Vendler selected the poems that she did based on how they related to Dickinson’s life, focusing a great amount on what inspired the poet to write what she did. Unlike Dickinson’s anthology of poems, this book provides insight into the selected poems, pointing out facts and characteristics that readers should be aware of.

Dickinson and Vendler’s book was useful in two ways for my research paper. The first was to provide me with a copy of