Emily Dickinson’s works are studied by various audiences from high school students to college scholars. Even without striving to hope that her works would impact so many generations, Dickinson has influenced many generations of poets and plays a major role in the development of American Literature. Dickinson did not become famous for her works until after her death in 1886. Not only is Emily Dickinson’s work important to the study of American Literature, most of her writings were composed during the tumultuous Civil War era. The study of her work is important to historians a snap shot into the mindset of American citizens during a violent time in our countries history.
As a poet, Dickinson was very private. She has been characterized as a hermit. By those who knew her during her life, she was a secretive person socially, a tendency which flowed into her writing style. The tendency for Dickinson to withdraw socially was exhibited in her objection to having any of her poems published. Even when encouraged by her closest friends, Dickinson opposed publication. In one instance, she complained to her closest male friend, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, on February 14th, 1866, about a publication done without her permission (Litz & Weigel, 30). In fact, during her lifetime, only ten poems were published. (30) In 1858, she began making manuscripts of her own works but later she completely stopped this trend. (Litz & Weigel, 30). Because of her guarded behavior, her reason for ceasing the creations of manuscripts is unknown. (Litz & Weigel , 30).
Emily Dickinson was born into a privileged family in the town of Amherst, Massachusetts on December 10, 1830. She was raised in a large brick home with her family, which consisted of her fathe...
... middle of paper ...
...Instead of attempting to seek out a hidden agenda in her works, one should simply read them without presuming an “intended connection at all but rather something informal that has been preserved” (Litz & Weigel, 48).
Works Cited
“Bright’s Desease”, Medical Dictionary of MedicineNet.com. Web. 7. May. 2002.
“Emily Dickinson and the Civil war.” Emily Dickinson Museum, n.d. Web. 17. Jan. 2012.
Hipple, Theodore W. Writers for young adults. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1997. Print.
Litz, A. Walton & Weigel, Molly. American writers: a collection of literary biographies. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, [c1979-. Print.
Mead, Walter Russell. “White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson.” Foreign Affairs 88.2 (2009): 149. History Reference Center. Web. 1 Feb. 2012.
Emily Dickinson’s response to the Civil War was once discounted as nonexistent, but in the last few decades her works have been added to the Civil War canon. The previous belief that Dickinson’s poetry was not influenced by the Civil War is preposterous given that her most successful years as a poet coincided with the Civil War. Like any American during the war, she too experienced loss when a person from her childhood had been killed in a battle, and she kept her correspondence with Thomas Wentworth Higginson throughout the war. No American was left unscathed; the war had influenced the country in many different ways – political, personal, and literary. This is why it would be the most logical to assume Dickinson had written about the Civil
Phillips, Elizabeth. " The Histrionic Imagination." Emily Dickinson: Personae and Performance. University Park and London: Penn State, 1919.
Emily Dickinson was born December 10th, 1830 in her family home on main street in Amherst, Massachusetts to her two parents Edward and Emily Norcross Dickinson. The homestead in which she was born was a family home owned by her grandparents who, soon after her sister’s birth in 1833, sold it out of the family. The Dickinson’s held residence in the home as tenants for the next seven years. Once her father’s political career took off, around the age she was nine, they moved to, and bought a new house in the same town. Dickinson was very close to her siblings, her older brother Austin and younger sister Lavinia. She had a strong attachment to her home and spent a lot of her time doing domestic duties such as baking and gardening. Dickinson also had good schooling experiences of a girl in the early nineteenth century. She started out her education in an Amherst district school, then from there she attended Amherst Academy with her sister for about seven years. At this school it is said that she was an extraordinary student with very unique writing talent. From there she attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary for a year in 1847. this year was the longest she had spent away from home. In her youth, Dickinson displayed a social s...
Dickinson became in this state of affairs because of the influence and “correspondence with Higginson,” which was probably why Dickinson isolated everyone out of her life. Dickinson’s “correspondence with Higginson probably also influenced her that her poems had no significance in or won’t bring the audience's attention,” with Higginson’s words stuck in her head, it influenced her to isolate herself from society. While she was writing poems, Dickinson wanted to make her parents, society and her family aware of her work. When she wrote her poems, she wanted to make everyone proud of her work that she has been doing, including her parents.
Recognized for experimenting with poetry, Emily Dickinson is said to be one of the greatest American poets. Her work was an amazing success even after being published four years after her death in 1890. Eleven editions of Dickinson’s work were published in less than two years. Emily Dickenson’s personal life, literary influences and romantic sufferings were the main inspirations for her poetry.
Emily Dickinson is one of the most well known poets of her time. Though her life was outwardly uneventful, what went on inside her house behind closed doors is unbelievable. After her father died she met Reverend Charles Wadsworth. She soon came to regard him as one of her most trusted friends, and she created in his image the “lover'; whom she was never to know except in her imagination. It is also said that it was around 1812 when he was removed to San Fransico that she began her withdrawal from society. During this time she began to write many of her poems. She wrote mainly in private, guarding all of her poems from all but a few select friends. She did not write for fame, but instead as a way of expressing her feelings. In her lifetime only six of her poems were even printed; none of which had her consent. It was not until her death of Brights Disease in May of 1862, that many of her poems were even read (Chelsea House of Library Criticism 2837). Thus proving that the analysis on Emily Dickinson’s poetry is some of the most emotionally felt works of the nineteenth century.
Emily Dickinson, who achieved more fame after her death, is said to be one of the greatest American poets of all time. Dickinson communicated through letters and notes and according to Amy Paulson Herstek, author of “Emily Dickinson: Solitary and Celebrated Poet,” “Writing was the way she kept in touch with the world” (15). Dickinson’s style is unique and although unconventional, it led to extraordinary works of literature. Dickinson lived her life in solitude, but in her solitude she was free to read, write and think which led to her nonconformity and strong sense of individualism. Suzanne Juhasz, a biographer of Dickinson, sums up most critics’ idea of Dickinson ideally: “Emily Dickinson is at once the most intimate of poets, and the most guarded. The most self-sufficient, and the neediest. The proudest, and the most vulnerable. These contradictions, which we as her readers encounter repeatedly in her poems, are understandable, not paradoxical, for they result from the tension between the life to which she was born and the one to which she aspired” (1). Dickinson poured her heart and soul into over 1,700
In conclusion, it can be stated the examples of Emily Dickinson's work discussed in this essay show the poetess to be highly skilled in the use of humor and irony. The use of these two tools in her poems is to stress a point or idea the poetess is trying to express, rather than being an end in themselves. These two tools allow her to present serious critiques of her society and the place she feels she has been allocated into by masking her concerns in a light-hearted, irreverent tone.
Ickstadt, Heinz. “Emily Dickinson’s Place in Literary History; or, the Public Function of a Private Poet.” The Emily Dickinson Journal 10.1 (2001): 55-68.
Litz, A. Walton, and Molly Weigel, eds. American Writers: A Collection of Literary Biographies, A Retrospective Supplement. Vol. 1. New York: Scribner's, 1998.
Emily Dickinson grew up in Amherst, Massachusetts in the nineteenth century. As a child she was brought up into the Puritan way of life. She was born on December 10, 1830 and died fifty-six years later. Emily lived isolated in the house she was born in; except for the short time she attended Amherst Academy and Holyoke Female Seminary. Emily Dickinson never married and lived on the reliance of her father. Dickinson was close to her sister Lavinia and her brother Austin her whole life. Most of her family were members of the church, but Emily never wished to become one. Her closest friend was her sister-in-law Susan. Susan was Emily's personal critic; as long as Emily was writing she asked Susan to look her poems over.
The biography you have just read is a summary of the life of Emily Dickinson we have all taken to accept. The following story is the truth revealed. The shocking discoveries will leave you in amazement. One hundred-fifteen years later, who would have thought historians could ever crack a scandal like this one?
Emily Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, on December 10, 1830. She was the middle child in a family of three. Her father was a respected lawyer, working as the treasurer of Amherst College, and her grandfather was one of the college 's founders. Her mother was a traditional, quiet
Porter, David T. The Art of Emily Dickinson’s Early Poetry. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966. Print.
Dickinson was unique and the “exception” in creating a private relationship with her self and her soul. In “Emily Dickinson and Popular Culture”, David S. Reynolds, a new historicism critic, wrote that it 's no surprise that the majority of Dickinson 's poetry was produced between 1858-1866, “It was a period of extreme consciousness about proliferation of varied women 's role in American culture.” It was a time where women were actively searching for more “literary” ways of self expression” (Reynolds 25). Dickinson was able to express her ideas and beliefs as a woman, something that was scandalous during this time period.