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One of the known polysemic resources available to Dickinson in her poetic craft was Noah Webster's 1844 American Dictionaryof
the English Language. In Webster's dictionary entries, Dickinson found a catalogue of synonyms, antonyms, hyponyms,definitions,
etymologies, and citations that provided rich lexical texture for her unique poetic diction. Contemporary scholars now use
Webster's dictionary as a key to understanding Dickinson's intricate semantic puzzles.
Example: For example, under definition 4 of the entry for thenoun KEEPER, Webster says "In Great Britain, the keeperof
the great seal, is a lord by his office." In onevariation of Poem 817, Dickinson says "Only the keeper of thisseal
/ Conquer Mortality." The phrase "keeper of the seal"is unique enough that we can assume that Dickinson may
have consulted Webster as she drafted and revised the poem.
Emily Dickinson's unique use of punctuation sets her apart from every other writer, her use of figurative language, and
even capitalization, is not entirely original. Dickinson, Thoreau, and Emerson were all heavy users of personification, capitalizing
such things as "Nature" and "Death," as if these things would actually drop by for a card game or something
("Oh, hi Death, you look rather morbid today..."). In addition to this is imagery, - here, a display of simile -
as shown in "The Conclusion" of Walden, where Thoreau makes the world into a ship, declaring that he would like
to travel on deck, so as to "best see the moonlight amid the mountains." Earlier, Emerson describes his profound,
nature-induced trance: "I am nothing: I see all ... I am part or parcel of God," and Dickinson describes her individuality
in "I felt a Funeral, / in my Brain," as having been caused by a break in a "Plank in Reason" causing
her to fall and hit a "World, at every plunge."
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