Theres a certain slant of light : Theres a certain slant of light, On winter afternoons, That oppresses, like the weight

Of cathedral tunes. Heavenly hurt it gives us; We can find no scar, But internal difference Where the meanings are. None may teach it anything, Tis the seal, despair,An imperial affliction Sent us of the air. When it comes, the landscape listens, Shadows hold their breath; When it goes, t is like the distance On the look of death. The psychoanalytic critic would look of the unconscious desires sublimated by Dickinson in her poem. In the psychoanalysts mind everyones actions are governed by sexual/pleasure seeking motives. Dickinson would have these desires and since they cannot be expressed in society she must sublimate them in her creative outlet, poetry. For example, with Freuds theories in mind, we might draw the conclusion that Dickinson got a sexual pleasure from pain. The second approach of psychological criticism discussed in class is trauma. According to Caruths article Trauma and Experience: Introduction, in trauma the greatest confrontation with reality may also occur as an absolute numbing to it, that immediacy, paradoxically enough, may take the form of belatedness. The affects of trauma on an author can manifest itself in their writing. Say for instance we learned that Emily Dickinsons mother had killed herself in front her, this traumatic experience would be influential on her writing and we could interpret her poems with this in mind. (Trauma does not stand so much on its own as it is linked to psychoanalysis. The unconscious desires, perhaps influenced by trauma, of an author are the true meanings underlying all of their work.) The third approach of psychological criticism discussed in class is the Cognitive Approach. Whereas the psychoanalytic approach focused on the author and why they wrote what they wrote, the cognitive approach focuses on the reader and how their mind works while reading literature. This approach explains why humans associate certain mindsets with situations. The process is scientific in nature and draws evidence such as evolutionary findings to support its claim. The cognitive critic would read Dickinsons poem, Theres a certain slant of light, and focus on what mindsets the reader associates with each line and why they do so. Through an understanding of a cognitive approach on literary works such as Dickinsons poetry the reader can reach a better understanding of the poems intellectual complexity and the logic behind how easily they can follow what is going on in the poems.