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Emily DickinsonA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
One of the principal themes of “This World is not Conclusion” and many of Dickinson’s other poems is the infinite unknowability of God, Heaven, and eternity. The beginning of the poem affirms that existence in this world is not the “conclusion” (Line 1) of life, since there is another world outside of ours. However, the speaker’s certainty extends only to the existence of this “beyond” (Lind 2), but not to any particular aspect of its true nature, information which no human being possesses. Possibly, this new place holds another “Species” (Line 2)—but using this scientific classification indicates a level of uncertainty and personal distance. The poem’s speaker knows that there are beings in Heaven, but can only characterize them in inconclusive and almost inhuman terms.
The rest of the poem confirms humans’ limited understanding of eternity and its residents. Attempts to describe the next world can only generate comparisons to bodily senses: The afterlife is “Invisible, as Music—/ But positive, as Sound” (Lines 3-4). Auditory events, while a familiar phenomenon, are intangible—but because we cannot see or touch them, doesn’t mean they aren’t real. Similarly, the speaker implies that the “beyond” can be felt with another human sense, though it defies the specificity of sight.
By Emily Dickinson
A Bird, came down the Walk
Emily Dickinson
A Clock stopped—
Emily Dickinson
A narrow Fellow in the Grass (1096)
Emily Dickinson
Because I Could Not Stop for Death
Emily Dickinson
"Faith" is a fine invention
Emily Dickinson
Fame Is a Fickle Food (1702)
Emily Dickinson
Hope is a strange invention
Emily Dickinson
"Hope" Is the Thing with Feathers
Emily Dickinson
I Can Wade Grief
Emily Dickinson
I Felt a Cleaving in my Mind
Emily Dickinson
I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain
Emily Dickinson
If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking
Emily Dickinson
If I should die
Emily Dickinson
If you were coming in the fall
Emily Dickinson
I heard a Fly buzz — when I died
Emily Dickinson
I'm Nobody! Who Are You?
Emily Dickinson
Much Madness is divinest Sense—
Emily Dickinson
Success Is Counted Sweetest
Emily Dickinson
Tell all the truth but tell it slant
Emily Dickinson
The Only News I Know
Emily Dickinson