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Emily Dickinson, “Because I could not stop for Death”

Many of Dickinson’s poems explore themes related to death, and “Because I could not stop for Death” is perhaps her most famous on the subject. Admittedly, “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain” is only metaphorically about death. However, the two poems may be profitably read together, particularly for the way they each attempt to imagine what lies beyond the boundaries of human reason.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls”

Longfellow was a contemporary of Dickinson, and just as she read the work of many of her other peers, she read his work as well. Although in general their poetry couldn’t be more different in style and theme, these two poems do share a powerful thematic interest in the indifference of the universe.

Edgar Allan Poe, “Annabel Lee”

Poe wrote this poem the year he died, in 1849, which was just over ten years before Dickinson entered her most generative creative phase. Despite not quite being contemporaries, their poems resonate powerfully with each other. For one thing, they each depict the maddening effects of grief. For another, they both explore the troubling consequences of the breakdown of reason.

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