Emily Dickinson's poem entitled "He ate and drank the
precious words" comes from her collection of poetry under Part One of "Life". It is
number twenty-one in the collection.
Please remember that
with any poem, the interpretation belongs to the reader. Therefore, the answer that I
provide is based upon my own personal interpretation of the poem and its
theme.
The poem refers to a man who is far past his prime.
The man is metaphorically drunk off of the words that he is
reading:
He
ate and drank the precious wordsHis spirit grew
robust
After, the poem speaks
to the fact that the new knowledge brought to the man allows him to forget that he is
poor and his fame has been forgotten by all:
He knew no more that he was
poor
Or that his fame was
dust
At the end of the poem,
the man is so intoxicated (by the words he is reading) that he is able to feel free from
any concerns which he may have had prior:
What liberty/ A loosened spirit
brings.
The theme of the poem
is freedom. The theme emerges from the fact that the man in the poem is able to break
free from his past based upon what he is reading.
One could
look at the book as being something spiritual (like the Bible) given the words in the
book freed him from his past.
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