18 pages • 36 minutes read
I Like to See It Lap the Miles
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Historical Context: The Consequences of Railroad Construction
During Dickinson’s life, trains represented a new expanding mode of rapid, reliable, and technologically advanced transportation in the United States. The poem’s exuberant tone matches the contemporary excitement over their possibilities. As Dickinson’s father helped bring a train line to Amherst, Dickinson also had a personal connection to trains. Before Dickinson was born, people began the work that’d make it possible to have trains across the United States. They surveyed the territory and created maps. By the time of Dickinson’s death, train lines connected the East Coast to the West Coast. They could “lap the Miles” and “lick the Valleys up” (Lines 1-2). The locomotives ran on steam, so they had to “feed [...] at Tanks” (Line 3), or load up water to serve as fuel for their journeys.
The US government helped finance the railroads, which made rail tycoons rich enough to be nicknamed robber barons. Conversely, the people who actually built the railroads faced brutality and death from the poor labor conditions. These workers included enslaved people, formerly enslaved people, Indigenous people, Mexican laborers, and Chinese migrants, and European immigrants. The European immigrants received higher pay, but no one benefited from the emphasis on speed instead of safety. Dickinson’s poem contains a notable absence of humans; this purposeful lack alludes to the inhuman conditions and to the desire to ignore the human costs of technological advancement. The railroads also negatively impacted the environment—a predatory dynamic that Dickinson captures through the depiction of the train as ravenous and greedy.
Literary Context: Poems About Technological Advancements
“Miles” is part of a subgenre of 19th-century poems that highlight US technological developments. Walt Whitman, another seminal figure in American poetry, who is often characterized as a gregarious and sociable counter to Dickinson’s introspection, was also captivated by trains, as expressed in his poem “To a Locomotive in Winter” (1876). While Dickinson’s short lines capture the fragmenting aspects of the train, Whitman’s extended lines reflect the train’s strength. Both present the train with awe and trepidation and note its liberating power, but don’t look away from its unpleasant physical nature. Dickinson describes the “horrid” and “hooting” noises (Line 12); Whitman observes the train’s crass “belching” sounds (Line 9).
Later generations of American poets, such as Hart Crane and Allen Ginsberg, who were both influenced by Whitman, also wrote about technological breakthroughs. Crane documented the technical splendor of the Brooklyn Bridge (completed in 1883) in his poem “The Bridge: To Brooklyn Bridge” (1930). Like Dickinson’s train, Crane’s bridge is all-powerful. Dickinson uses animal metaphors to describe her train, while Crane gives the bridge human traits, turning it into a movie star. At the same time, Crane’s bridge also has an oppressive quality; he notes that it exemplifies monuments that makes humans secondary to the edifices they create. In “I Am a Victim of Telephone” (1968), the Beatnik poet Ginsberg feels oppressed by fact that the telephone allows numerous people to directly contact him, echoing the train’s nimbleness that allows it to penetrate any terrain or landscape obstacle. Like the rush of Dickinson’s train, the constantly ringing phone thwarts introspection and inner peace.
Unlock all 18 pages of this Study Guide
Plus, gain access to 9,250+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
Related Titles
By Emily Dickinson
