Plath bigger winner, but are she and Emily really compatible?
The “Emily’s Favorite” poll brought some interesting results. By far, the winner is Sylvia Plath receiving 61% of the votes; tied for second place are W. B. Yeats and Edna St. Vincent Millay with 14%. Also tied for third place are Rabindranath Tagore and Gwendolyn Brooks with 4% each.
Plath was chosen most likely because of her perceived obsession with death and the dark side of life. While it is true that Emily Dickinson wrote many poems on the subject of death, her purpose was very different from Plath’s.
Plath seemed to have a true obsession and fascination with death, but Dickinson explored death because she was repulsed by it. Dickinson studied the subject until she became convinced that there was no such thing as death—at least for the soul. Dickinson demonstrated an understanding of immortality, while Plath sought death as the end of suffering.
Yeats and Millay both demonstrate a skill that, no doubt. prompted voters to choose them. Dickinson would have studied these poets for their sheer talent as well as for their subject matter.
Brooks was probably chosen simply because she was a woman, but also perhaps because she did experiment with language as Dickinson did.
Tagore, although tied with Brooks for last place, would receive my vote, if I were voting. Tagore’s poetry offers a unique spiritual perspective that would have intrigued Dickinson immensely. Dickinson’s poetry dramatizes her spiritual search, and that is exactly what Tagore’s poetry does.
In Tagore’s Gitanjali, poem number 7 speaks to God as Master Poet, dramatizing the spiritual concept of man being made in the image of God. Dickinson’s “The Brain is wider than the sky” also dramatizes this concept when she says, “The brain is just the weight of God.”
Dickinson was well acquainted with Holy Scripture particularly the King James Version of the Bible, and Tagore was well versed in Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita and other sacred Hindu texts, such as the Vedas. In the work of both poets, readers find evidence of this study of spiritual texts.
Poetry readers can find similarities among poets who might seem worlds apart as, of course, Dickinson and Tagore were geographically and culturally. But ultimately, what puts the poets in similar categories is their dedication to certain themes and subjects. For Dickinson and Tagore those themes and subjects were almost always of a spiritual nature, unlike the other poets who made up the poll.
