What is the meaning of the Emily Dickinson poem "Remorse--is Memory--awake"?

Answer 1

The meaning in short: Remorse is a cureless disease that torments the soul.
She is talking about mental pain. For Dickinson, history and memory are forms of thepast that are exponentially larger than the present.

Remorse is memory awake,
Her companies astir, --
A presence of departed acts
At window and at door.

It's past set down before the soul,
And lighted with a match,
Perusal to facilitate
Of its condensed despatch.

Remorse is cureless, -- the disease
Not even God can heal;
For 't is his institution, --
The complement of hell.

So here we see that memory and remorse have taken on the attributes of hell. Again, theword has gone through a metaphor process. Hell is now used to describe anything difficult, challenging, or unpleasant.So while both words, heaven and hell, are very different in meaning they do sharesome attributes. Both words went through a metaphor process allowing them to be usedin more “informal” settings. Also, finding that both words have a common “ancestor”allows us to view them and all words differently. We can see that though their meaningshave changed they at once shared the common attribute of signifying something that covers. Heaven took on the positive attribute of the word, covering to protect or watchover. The other, Hell, took on the negative attribute of something bad to be hidden andkept undiscovered.

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