There's A Certain Slant Of Light

The transformation at the center of this poem embodies the speaker’s conflicting feelings about changes. The internal change they experience is illuminating but also bewildering. It causes pain, but it is essential. The beam of light the speaker is reflecting on encapsulates this experience, and her description of it reveals that. Light, often associated with knowledge and truth, illuminates the speaker and disperses the darkness of ignorance. The “Heft” (Line 3) of the light emphasizes the contradictory way it has weight while also uplifting the speaker. The light does not weigh the speaker down but rather lifts them toward a heavenly afterlife.

In addition, the speaker describes how this transformation cannot be taught. These “Meanings” (Line 8), while transformative, are difficult for the speaker to understand. However, by connecting it to the natural landscape, the speaker emphasizes the natural aspect of the change they are experiencing. For the speaker, their new awareness seems to even transform the world around them.

Initially, it seems as if this poem will simply be a description of the light of “Winter Afternoons” (Line 2). But at the end of the stanza, the speaker connects this natural phenomenon to a religious experience.