SOURCE: “Disengagement from Process in ED's 712,” in Dickinson Studies, No. 83, 2nd Half, 1992, pp. 38-48.

In the following essay, Winniford offers a detailed reading of “Because I could not stop for Death,” discussing Dickinson's handling of death and praising her intellectual acceptance of the poem's stark conclusion.

“Because I could not stop for Death—” is generally acknowledged to be one of ED's [Emily Dickinson's] most remarkable poems. Allen Tate has gone so far as to state that “If the word ‘great’ means anything in poetry, this poem is one of the greatest in the English language” (22). A complicated piece involving several of ED's intricate images and suggesting layers of meanings and mixed themes, the poem has been a favorite target for critics and biographers intent upon unraveling the Dickinson mystery. As Richard B. Sewall points out in Volume 2 of his biography of Dickinson, T. W. Higginson, the first editor...