The Full Text of “This is my letter to the world”
1This is my letter to the World
2That never wrote to Me —
3The simple News that Nature told
4With tender Majesty
5Her Message is committed
6To Hands I cannot see —
7For love of Her — Sweet — countrymen
8Judge tenderly — of Me
The Full Text of “This is my letter to the world”
1This is my letter to the World
2That never wrote to Me —
3The simple News that Nature told
4With tender Majesty
5Her Message is committed
6To Hands I cannot see —
7For love of Her — Sweet — countrymen
8Judge tenderly — of Me
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“This is my letter to the world” Introduction
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"This is my letter to the world" is a poem by the American poet Emily Dickinson, written around 1862. Like many of Dickinson’s poems, it is compact and enigmatic. In a broad sense, the poem is about isolation and communication: the speaker expresses deep frustration that he or she is unable to communicate with the "World." Some readers have taken the poem to be a reflection on Dickinson’s own isolation from society, since the poet spent much of her adult life as a recluse. Regardless, the poem documents the way that poetry attempts to translate the broader mysteries of nature into language and communicate them to other people.
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“This is my letter to the world” Summary
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This is my message to the world, even though the world never sent me any messages. My message contains the basic facts that nature told me with tenderness and greatness.
Nature’s news is carried in invisible hands. If you love nature, fellow citizens, don’t judge me harshly.
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“This is my letter to the world” Themes
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Loneliness and Isolation
On one level, this is a poem reflecting on the pain of isolation and affirming the human desire for connection. The speaker has written a "letter" addressed to the "World," which here can be read as everyone and everything apart from the speaker: it represents human life and community, even civilization itself. Yet though the speaker attempts to communicate with the "World" in writing, this World has failed—intentionally or simply through neglect—to extend this same courtesy to the speaker. It "never wrote to Me," the speaker complains in the poem's second line, thus beginning the poem with a sense of loneliness and frustration at being overlooked.
Importantly, although the speaker feels lonely and isolated, he or she still longs to be a part of the "World." The speaker signals this continued sense of belonging toward the end of the poem with the use of the word "countrymen." The word, which means "fellow citizens" or "fellow community members," suggests that the speaker continues to feel like a member of the "World" being addressed even if that World has not acknowledged the speaker. Despite the World's seeming rejection, the speaker considers him or herself to be one of those "countrymen" and attempts to reach out to others the way he or she knows how: via writing.
At the same time, however, perhaps the speaker has been so consumed with receiving and translating the "News that Nature told" that he or she has left little time or space for actual people. Writing, the poem thus seems to suggest, is ironically at once a tool of communication and a deeply isolating endeavor.
Though readers shouldn't necessarily take the speaker of this poem to be Dickinson herself, the context of the poet's life could be helpful here: Dickinson was famously reclusive and did not receive much recognition for her work during her lifetime. Dickinson was also intensely preoccupied with her own mortality. This poem, then, can perhaps be considered a contemplation of legacy—as Dickinson reaching out to the world in the hopes of being remembered fondly through her poetry, despite having essentially walled herself off from the rest of society at large.
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The Purpose of Poetry
Closely related to the poem's theme of isolation is its preoccupation with writing, which, as previously noted, is perhaps the cause of the speaker's isolation in the first place. Indeed, it's possible to interpret the poem as a meditation on the construction and purpose of poetry. The speaker presents his or her "letter"—which can be taken as a symbol for poetry—as a literal transcription of "the simple News that Nature" told the speaker, suggesting that poetry is a way to communicate some meaningful insight about the world to other people.
In this formulation, note how the speaker presents him or herself as a mere conduit for this "News," a being through which a mysterious "Message" is passed rather than the creator of that message. In other words, instead of expressing the speaker's own thoughts and feelings, the poem is (or should be) a transmission of "News" from the natural world. As a result, the speaker protests in the poem’s final lines, his or her readers should “Judge tenderly”: in other words, don’t shoot the messenger! Not only does this distance the poet from the poem, but it also elevates poetry itself as something naturally—perhaps even divinely—inspired. After all, it is coming from some grand, "Majestic" force.
At the same time, however, the poet’s task as a messenger is clearly isolating. For one thing, nature is presented as remote, an inaccessible realm that the speaker does not fully understand. The message that the speaker carries arrives through mysterious means, via "Hands" that the speaker "cannot see." Although the speaker receives nature’s message, the speaker does not seem to fully understand what nature is, or exactly how—or by whose hands—its message arrives. Perhaps the speaker does not even fully understand this "Message" itself, and instead is grappling with how to parse the "News" he or she has been given even as the speaker is tasked with sharing that "News." The speaker’s loneliness is thus, to a certain extent, a consequence of being a poet: to be a poet involves being situated as a messenger between the "World" and "Nature"—but not being fully part of either.
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “This is my letter to the world”
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Lines 1-4
This is my letter to the World
That never wrote to Me —
The simple News that Nature told
With tender MajestyThe poem begins by announcing that "this," meaning the poem itself, is a "letter" addressed to the "World." This "World" could refer to the whole of human society, and as such this opening line reveals that the speaker is somehow separate from that society. The capitalization of "World" also underscores its personification: the speaker views the World having the ability to write back, though it has never done so.
Already there's a sense of frustration and/or regret at the fact that the speaker is so isolated, and that the rest of the "World" has failed to acknowledge the speaker's existence. Nevertheless, the speaker wants to pass along some sort of message to this World that he or she has received from "Nature" (which is similarly personified).
These lines are both spare and dense; they use simple words that are at once rich with meaning and intensely ambiguous, raising as many questions as they do answers. Indeed, it's not yet clear what exactly this "News" actually is, but it's possible to interpret it as being a reference to poetry itself.
First off, note that this very "letter" that the speaker has written is, quite literally, a poem. This suggests that poetry is a form of communication, which makes sense: poems are ways for poets to express certain ideas, beliefs, or emotions to other people—they are a means of translating thoughts and feelings into words that other people can read and understand.
Yet this particular poem does not seem to be about the speaker's personal thoughts, but rather about some sort of "News" from "Nature." The speaker implies that poetry's task is to pass on some broader, objective message: taking nature's "simple News" and translating it, as best it can, into terms the "World" will understand. The alliteration of the /n/ sound in "Nature" and "News" underscores this connection: if this "News" is akin to poetry, then poetry itself is something plucked from the natural world. Poetry contains within in it grand natural truths, and it is the poet's job to write this "News" down.
The poem's form is appropriate for its moral and philosophical seriousness. It is written as a ballad, with alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, rhymed ABCB. This meter and rhyme scheme was often used for hymns—the religious songs sung in English Church. For Dickinson’s first readers, pious New Englanders who spent a lot of time in Church, the poem’s relationship to the hymn would’ve been obvious.
Dickinson appropriates the majesty of religious music, but not its rigidity: Dickinson’s meter is consistently inconsistent, diverging widely from the expected rhythms of an iambic line. For example, the poem’s very first line contains a spondee (two stresses) in its first foot:
This is my letter to the World
This emphasizes off the bat that this very document is something important and bold, a statement of intent.
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Lines 5-8
Her Message is committed
To Hands I cannot see —
For love of Her — Sweet — countrymen
Judge tenderly — of Me
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“This is my letter to the world” Symbols
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Letter
Literally, a letter is a written message which conveys information or news to a person or group of people. It's possible to interpret this "letter," however, as a symbol for poetry itself. Just like a letter, a poem communicates. It gives "News," and it is addressed to a specific person or group of people. Poetry is a means of connection, and is thus meant to be read. In this sense, the entire poem is about poetry and the way that it attempts to connect with—or fails to connect with—other people.
This understanding of poetry is reflected in Dickinson's own practices as a writer: she often circulated her poems in letters to specific friends or would write poems directly addressed to them, in response to major events in their lives.
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News
The speaker specifies that the "News" he or she receives from "Nature" is "simple." But the speaker doesn’t tell the reader what that "News" is. Perhaps the “News” is too simple to be expressed in language. Or perhaps the speaker simply doesn’t want to share the wisdom that he or she has gleaned from "Nature." Either way, the speaker’s reticence transforms the "News": it ceases to be literal information and becomes, instead, an ambiguous and rich symbol.
It may symbolize, for instance, the promise of Christian salvation—often called the "Good News." (This reading is strengthened by the widespread belief in the 19th century that nature supplied the evidence of God's creative power). Or it may be less dogmatically religious. (After all, as a student at Mount Holyoke, Dickinson reportedly refused to stand up when her pastor asked all the Christians in the room to rise!). It might symbolize poetic inspiration, which comes as "News" from "Nature." Or it might symbolize natural beauty more broadly.
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“This is my letter to the world” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Enjambment
“This is my letter to the world” generally follows an alternating pattern of enjambed and end-stopped lines. The poem thus divides up into 2-line units: the speaker introduces a new thought in the beginning of the first line and completes it at the end of the second line. For example, line 5 reveals that Nature's "Message" is being committed (or given) to something, and line 6 reveals what that something is (i.e., "Hands" the speaker cannot see).
This is not unusual in a ballad or a hymn: since the lines alternate between iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter (that is, iambic lines with either four or three feet) it makes sense to divide the poem conceptually into 2-line units. Further, these two line units might be said to model the relationship the poem describes, between the “World” and “Me.” Just as the speaker has a complicated, ambiguous connection to the “World,” so too each line in the poem’s 2-line units has a complicated relationship with the line that follows it.
Note that line 1 is rather ambiguous, and technically could be classified as an end-stopped line despite its lack of punctuation because it contains a grammatically complete statement. Because line 2 does not make sense without line 1, however, readers will more likely experience line 1 as enjambed, which is why we have marked it as such here.
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End-Stopped Line
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Caesura
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Alliteration
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Assonance
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Consonance
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Personification
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Parallelism
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Synecdoche
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"This is my letter to the world" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- World
- News
- Nature
- Majesty
- Message
- Committed
- Countrymen
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The speaker's use of this word is ambiguous. It might mean, literally, the Earth; it might refer to the universe and all of creation; or the speaker might be using it in a more constrained sense, to refer simply to human civilization. Depending on your interpretation, the word might mean any of these things—or all of them at once.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “This is my letter to the world”
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Form
Like many of Dickinson’s poems, “This is my letter to the world” is a modified ballad: alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, in quatrains rhymed ABCB.
The ballad was a popular form: it was used throughout the 16th, 17th, and 18th century for drinking songs and popular narratives about love and crime, printed cheaply on broadsheets and distributed to the general public. However, the ballad also became the standard form for hymns—the religious music sung in English and American churches. This is probably the key precursor to Dickinson's use of the form. Her poems often feel like secular hymns, invoking grand problems, religious complications, in compact, enigmatic phrases.
Though Dickinson uses a form associated with religious ritual, however, her poem is in no way dogmatic. Dickinson is not interested in upholding religious doctrine: instead, her poem is full of deep, implicit questions about the relationship between nature, the individual, and human society more broadly. These questions feel sharper and more pressing because they are framed in a form closely connected to religion and its rituals.
That said, Dickinson does not strictly adhere to the form in this poem. Her meter often contains substitutions, while her rhymes are sometimes weak or break the poem's rhythm. The poem thus calls the rhythms of a hymn to mind, without adhering precisely to those rhythms.
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Meter
“This is my letter to the world” is written in ballad meter. In ballad meter, lines of iambic tetrameter (four poetic feet with a da DUM rhythm, for a total of eight syllables) and iambic trimeter (three poetic feet with a da DUM rhythm, for a total of six syllables) alternate. The first and third lines of each stanza are in iambic tetrameter, while the second and fourth lines are in iambic trimeter. One can see this pattern at work in lines 7-8:
For love | of Her | — Sweet — coun- | trymen |
Judge ten- | derly | — of Me |However, as is clear above, Dickinson’s meter is rarely precise. Even these lines—arguably the most regular in the poem—have substitutions and ambiguities. Note the spondee (stressed-stressed) and pyrrhic (unstressed-unstressed) in line 8. "Sweet" in the third foot of line 7 could also be scanned as a stressed syllable, making yet another spondee. Her lines thus flirt with ballad meter, without strictly adhering to its demands.
For another example, note how the first line contains a pyrrhic in its third foot:
This is | my lett- | er to | the World |
As a result, the line is short a stress: instead of the four stressed syllables one usually finds in a line of iambic tetrameter, this line only has three. Similarly, line 4 has only two stresses:
With ten- | der Maj- | esty |
The line is somewhat ambiguous and could be scanned differently, but, in any case, the final syllable of the line is unstressed. This creates a break from the standard rhythm of an iambic line—which complicates the expected rhyme between lines 2 and 4, because these lines rhyme a stressed with an unstressed one ("me" with "majesty"). Where one expects metrical assurance and confidence, one finds instead complication.
It seems likely that this is intentional. Dickinson takes the solidity and confidence of the hymn and infuses it with rhythmic complication—in much the same way as her searching, questioning poem calls into question the relationships between the world and the individual.
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Rhyme Scheme
“This is my letter to the world” follows the standard rhyme scheme of a ballad. Each quatrain is rhymed as:
ABCB
Indeed, the poem uses only one rhyme sound, which appears in both quatrains, a long /e/. This single rhyme binds the two stanzas together, so much so that they hardly feel separate at all. And the speaker even uses the same rhyme word twice: "Me" appears in line 2 and line 8. The poem thus has a circular feel: it returns to the place where it starts.
The speaker mostly rhymes words consisting of a single syllable, such as "see" and "me" in the second stanza. When the speaker uses a longer word in line 4—"majesty"—problems emerge. The final syllable of "majesty
rhymes with the "Me" in line 2, but the "y" in "majesty" is unstressed, while "Me" is stressed. The result is a rather awkward syncopation. The rhyme scheme thus calls to mind the regularity and certainty of a hymn—a kind of religious song, usually written in ballad meter—while complicating that certainty.
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“This is my letter to the world” Speaker
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The speaker of "This is my letter to the world" is anonymous. The poem does not provide the kind of details that would help its reader identify the speaker: his or her gender, profession, class, or personal circumstances. The word "Me" does appear in the poem twice, suggesting that the speaker's personality and ideas are important—but the poem does not provide any information about that personality or those ideas. The speaker’s "Me" is ultimately as abstract as its other nouns, like "World" or "Nature." In this sense, the poem encourages its reader to avoid thinking of its speaker as a specific person. Instead, the speaker is a general figure, who represents the dynamics of the human condition more broadly: the general relationship between human beings and the world in which they live.
Despite the poem's lack of internal evidence to identify its speaker, many readers have assumed that the poem is autobiographical, reflecting on Dickinson's own situation: as a reclusive woman living in a provincial town in the 19th century, cut off from the wider world and thus feeling that she is unable to meaningfully to connect to it.
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“This is my letter to the world” Setting
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"This is my letter to the world" does not describe its setting in detail. Though its speaker discusses "Nature," he or she does not specify a particular environment—for instance, the woods or the beach—as his or her particular concern. If the speaker’s meditation on nature originates in a specific place or experience, he or she does not acknowledge it. Instead, the poem meditates on nature in general terms, as an abstraction. (And, as a result, the speaker’s "Me" becomes equally as abstract). This encourages the reader to meditate in similarly general terms on the relationship between human beings and nature—and the "World" more broadly. The poem does not ask its readers to think about a specific setting or experience, but instead about the dynamics of experience more broadly: in what ways human beings interact with their world—and in what ways they are cut off from their world.
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Literary and Historical Context of “This is my letter to the world”
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Literary Context
Emily Dickinson is widely considered one of the most important—and most original—American poets. Although her work was not widely published until after her death, she has had a defining influence on several generations of American poets. Her poetry often seems to have no precedents: even now, 150 years after she wrote much of her work, it seems utterly original.
But Dickinson does have some important influences. She read Shakespeare with exceptional care. And she came from a prominent New England family, intimate with some of the leading intellectual figures of the day. Dickinson read carefully and corresponded with important philosophers, like Ralph Waldo Emerson, the leader of the “Transcendentalists,” a philosophical movement that praised nature and often found religious solace in the natural world. She was also profoundly shaped by her own religious experience, and many of her poems closely imitate the ballad meter in which hymns were written. Her work thus combines an unlikely set of influences: cutting edge 19th century philosophy, religious music, and the classics of English literature.
Dickinson did not publish her work during her lifetime. Instead, she sent her poems to friends in letters and assembled them into small manuscript books, called “fascicles.” Her manuscripts were written by hand and are often hard to decipher. Later editors have done much to regularize her work as they bring them into print. As a result, there are often considerable differences between different editions of Dickinson’s poems, including their line breaks and punctuation. For example, Dickinson is famous for using an em dash in her work—but in her manuscripts it is not clear that she is actually using an em dash or some punctuation mark of her own making, something like a cross or a plus sign (or simply a much shorter dash). Her manuscripts also often contain multiple variants, with three or four possible words for each word in the poem. The line breaks differ from the printed version: they less clearly follow the format of the ballad. (This is a particular problem for "This is my letter to the world," which contains different line breaks in its different versions).
The printed texts of Dickinson’s work are thus at best a poor approximation of the richness of her manuscripts. In the last thirty years, scholars have been to turn their attention to these manuscripts. Increasingly, any serious study of Dickinson’s poems must begin with facsimiles of her manuscripts, such as Jen Bervin and Marta Werner’s recent edition of poems that Dickinson wrote on envelopes, The Gorgeous Nothings.
Historical Context
Emily Dickinson was born into an important family in Amherst, Massachusetts. In her early life, she attended prominent schools, including Mount Holyoke, then a seminary for women. But in adulthood, she retreated into her family home, becoming reclusive. (Indeed, in Dickinson’s home in Amherst, one can see the tread she likely wore into the floorboards of her room, ostensibly from pacing back and forth over many years).
Though Dickinson spent much of her adult life in seclusion, distant from the world, she was a close observer of world affairs, as her many letters reveal. In her exchanges with friends and editors, she discusses everything from the deaths of pets to political events, like the American Civil War. Indeed, her greatest period of poetic creativity corresponds with the years of the Civil War, the violence of which Dickinson found deeply disturbing. Dickinson’s work is thus simultaneously distant from and intimate with the circumstances of her culture. Though she does not engage directly with the radical transformations in American society that occurred during her life time, she and her work were profoundly marked by those transformations.
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More “This is my letter to the world” Resources
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External Resources
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Dickinson's Own Words — Images from the Emily Dickinson archive of the original manuscripts for "This is my letter to the world," in her handwriting and with her original punctuation.
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About Dickinson's Fascicles — A brief article on Dickinson's manuscript books—or fascicles—by Dorothy Huff Oberhaus.
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Emily Dickinson Biography — A detailed biography of Emily Dickinson from the Poetry Foundation.
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The History of Transcendentalism — A detailed article on the history and philosophy of transcendentalism, from Stanford University.
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The Poem Out Loud — A reading of "This is my letter to the world."
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Emily Dickinson
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