Frost in a Haunted House: Images of Frost in Emily Dickinson’s Poems

Abstract

In most of her poems about nature, Dickinson portrays the creatures and the phenomena around the world about us. The world of nature is hauntingly mysterious enough to attract our attention. In spite of nature’s greatness, Dickinson also emphasizes the greatness of representing nature in poetry. Her desire lies not in literal representation of nature, but in interpretative representation of nature in her peculiar way. Dickinson’s nature is a projection of her mind into nature through her creative power. One of the important words used in her nature poems is frost which plays a significant role in her writing. In particular, Dickinson writes many poems about frost in connection with flowers. Dickinson’s attitude toward frost deserves our attention because she assigns a consistent image and meaning to the natural phenomenon in her writings. This essay aims to show how Dickinson reads nature in relation to her poetic self and how and why she portrays frost or frost images in her poems.