Sunday, November 20, 2011

"That I Did Always Love"

THAT I did always love,
I bring thee proof:
That till I loved
I did not love enough.
  
That I shall love alway,        5
I offer thee
That love is life,
And life hath immortality.
  
This, dost thou doubt, sweet?
Then have I        10
Nothing to show
But Calvary.

In “That I did always love,” Emily Dickinson suggests that without love no one can truly live. Until someone feels love, it is not understood. Dickinson posits the notion that love is everlasting and if someone does not ever feel love then they will have a life of suffering. Throughout the poem, Dickinson displays figurative language which helps to convey the idea that one must have love to have life. One example of a metaphor that portrays that one needs love in order to have a good life is “love is life.” The repetition and emphasis of the word love helps display the theme and idea of the poem. Because Dickinson was not ever married, I believe she wrote this poem to show how much she longed for love and marriage which could be associated with the reason she was a recluse because she felt she couldn’t have a happy life without love.

2 comments:

FireLight said...

I am sure you are right about the relationship between love & life. What ideas do you have about the reference -following the question- about Calvary?

Amber Lanier said...

I feel that she is meaning without love she has nothing to offer in life but her faith because she seems to express that life is all about love and God.