Emily Dickinson's Collected Poems Lesson Plan

In "Dare you see a Soul at the White Heat?," the speaker uses the metaphor of forging iron to describe a similar process experienced by the soul. What causes the purification of the soul? How is it similar to the forging of iron?

Similar to the refinement process the iron goes through during forging, the soul is purified through a "finer Forge," which refers to the divine refinement process that happens through spiritual transformation (or, perhaps, in the fires of hell). This purification process is also like that of iron in that, in the refining fire, the soul grows hotter than the fire itself and conquers it (as iron ore grows hotter than the fire...