What Soft — Cherubic Creatures

In terms of Dickinson’s own body of work, the confidence in the “Deity” (Line 8) or Jesus stands out. In other poems, Dickinson’s speakers doubt the role of God and Christ. In “‘Heavenly Father’—take to thee” (ca 1862), the speaker accuses God of “Duplicity,” and in “Those—dying then” (ca 1882), the speaker describes God as missing in action because he “cannot be found.” Concerning Jesus specifically, the speaker in “So well that I can live without” (ca 1862) asks for proof that Jesus loved humans as much as he said he did. The speakers in these poems use a confrontational tone toward God and Christ, which is similar to the speaker’s tone toward the "Gentlewomen” (Line 2) in “What Soft—Cherubic Creatures.”

For a larger literary context, Dickinson’s poem aligns with other 19th-century poets who countered the “Brittle Lady” (Line 11) trope. In 1856, Elizabeth Barrett Browning published the epic poem Aurora Leigh, where the eponymous character rejects marriage and chooses independence and engagement with “freckled Human Nature” (Line 7). Emily Brontë, too, challenged the notion that women were “Cherubic Creatures” (Line 1) in her unsentimental poetry and her classic novel Wuthering Heights (1847).