The Romantic Dream

Romanticism brought about a new sense of self. The era encouraged an exploration of the personal self and the American self. With the Enlightenment take on religion, people started to understand the need for mysticism and dreams, and the American Dream was seen as this giant mystical force  (Norton). A hunger for true American Literature and self expression occurred.

Emily Dickinson is arguably the most known female poet of this literary era. As a Romantic figure, she was influenced by transcendentalism and dark romanticism. Known for bridging the gap to Realism, her works focus on expressing the hidden consciousness of fragmented thoughts(Norton). In her poem “I Heard a Fly Buzz”, Dickinson created a unique perception of death; the speaker’s senses are going out one by one as his/her death approaches. As the speaker goes through this experience, he/she remarks that “I willed my Keepsakes — Signed Away what portions of me be assignable” to stay alive after his/her death (Dickinson 9-11). This romantic connection to the spiritual self even after death is cut off when the speaker awaits an epic heavenly death but is met with the mediocre buzzing of a bee. Dickinson’s ability to renounce the romantic mysticism through the psychological realism of death in this poem challenges the complex symbolic power of hope the American Dream was believed to possess during this time.