For this journal's purposes, I will be analyzing "Unto my books so good to turn" from Part One: Life of Emily Dickinson's works. Basically, this poem is talking about how Dickinson escapes into her books at the end of the day. She spurns the company of her "retarded guests" at their banquets, and the time that she spends waiting to escape to her library just makes it that much sweeter when she can actually get away. I'm sure Dickinson did not mean retarded in the offensive way that the word is commonly used in speech today, but, given Dickinson's contempt of most people, she very well may have meant that she thought they were slower mentally than everyone else.
Like Dickinson, I love to read. I am not a hermit; however, so books are not my only friends like they apparently were for the speaker in this poem.
Like many of Dickinson's other poems, "Unto my books so good to turn" has individual thoughts represented by each stanza that are similar throughout the whole poem. The first stanza is about how Dickinson likes, at the end of the day, to relax with a good book. The second stanza's idea is a metaphor comparing the speaker's small library with a feast with many merry guests. The third stanza basically says that no matter how ugly the world looks or what may be going on outside, books can always provide an escape to a happy place. The last stanza is about how the speaker cherishes the books as on would a friend, despite how plain they may look.
If one were religiously inclined, one could substitute the Bible for the books that are present in this poem. I know of many religious people who cherish the Bible and would therefore experience the emotions that Dickinson presents in this poem.
This poem was one of Dickinson's more literal poems. Except for the metaphor of stanza two, most of the language can be taken at face value.
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