Previous Next

American Transcendentalism

One of Dickinson’s greatest gifts as a poet was her ability to approach vast themes through everyday details. She was a particularly keen observer of the natural world, which often served as a springboard for her thoughts about life, death, time, and eternity. Her capacity to draw spiritual insight from the natural world links her to contemporary writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Emerson and Thoreau were the foremost figures in an American philosophical tradition known as Transcendentalism, which emerged in the mid-1800s. Transcendentalist thinkers positioned themselves against the rationalism of the eighteenth century. The rationalist tradition emphasized the power of human reason above all other things, and especially above supposedly “nonrational” forms of thought, such as religious faith. By contrast, Transcendentalists felt that the emphasis on human rationality blinds us to the way divinity pervades the entire world, and particularly the natural world. Admittedly, “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain” doesn’t concern itself specifically with nature. However, Dickinson does use the commonplace conceit of a funeral to explore themes of cosmic magnitude that clearly transcend ordinary existence. Indeed, the speaker concludes by describing how “a Plank in Reason” breaks (line 17) and reveals an otherworldly beyond.

The Second Great Awakening

The Second Great Awakening names a Protestant religious revival that occurred in the early nineteenth century in the United States. Like the First Great Awakening, which had taken place half a century before, the Second Great Awakening was characterized by a spirit of religious fervor. This spirit represented an “awakening” from the rationalism that had predominated in the eighteenth century, particularly as this form of rationalism had affected American religious life. The Unitarian Church, which held sway in major cities like Boston, had disposed of the more “fanciful” aspects of Christian theology, including the Trinitarian belief in a triune God. Dickinson, who grew up in a Calvinist community, was swept up by the Second Great Awakening in her youth. In her adult years, she grew to question the beliefs she’d been taught, and eventually she rejected all organized religion. Even so, her religious background deeply influenced her poetry, infusing it with curiosity about death, the afterlife, and what can—or cannot—be known of these realms. Although not espousing any specific denominational beliefs, “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain” does share with the spirit of the times an overriding interest in what lies beyond reason.

Previous section About Emily Dickinson Next section Related Works on SparkNotes

Take a Study Break