What Soft — Cherubic Creatures

The 19th-century American poet Emily Dickinson is the author of “What Soft—Cherubic Creatures.” A central figure in American literature, Dickinson wrote around 1,800 poems but, adverse to publicity, only published around 10 poems during her life. The publication of the remainder of her poems occurred after she died, and “What Soft—Cherubic Creatures” is one of her many posthumously published poems. Like most of her poems, it was untitled and not dated. Due to the lack of titles, Dickinson scholars use numbers and the poem’s first line to identify them. One authoritative Dickinson editor, Thomas Johnson, assigned it number 401. Another authoritative Dickinson editor, Ralph W. Franklin, assigned it number 675. Scholars believe she wrote the poem around 1862. The poem is a lyric and, because it teaches a lesson about upper-class women and their lack of integrity, it qualifies as a parable. Dickinson’s sharp humor, playful syntax, and ideas about humanity and religion shape the poem. Through her speaker, Dickinson challenges norms about Christianity and privileged women. "What Soft—Cherubic Creatures" is one of Dickinson’s more straightforward poems, but it’s not one of her most famous or anthologized poems, which include works like “