Emily Dickinson Themes

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Jacob Grothe Mrs. Bland American Literature 3-2-14 Emily Dickinson Emily Dickinson is one of the greatest American authors of all time. Have you ever wondered what things affected her works? Many things affected her works, these things included nature, time and eternity, religion, death, hard times, and the intense civil war. On December 10, 1830, a cold winter day, Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was brought into the world. Emily lived on Maine street in a lovely brick home, which they called the “Homestead.” Emily had an older brother named Austin. She also had a younger sister, who was born three years after her, her name was Livina. The first school that Emily attended was a school right down the road from her house. This was the first education that she received. This was the school that her father wanted her to attend. This is also where Emily’s writing career began (Borus: 9-14). There are a few themes that are presented throughout Emily’s poems, one of themes was nature. Many poets during Dickinson time wrote about nature, but Dickinson looked at nature differently than they did, and wrote about it in a different way then they did. In a lot of her poems she writes about the mystery of nature and its qualities, while also marveling at it. Emily spent much of her time studying nature and the various aspects of it. One example of a poem where she talks about nature is “A bird came down the walk.” In this poem the bird is moving around and is in action. This bird is also oblivious to a person watching it. Emily’s point in writing this poem is to say that as the person is not seen then nature keeps moving along in its random and informal way (Borus: 44-73). Time and Eternity was a huge theme that influe... ... middle of paper ... ...tead.” This home has since become a museum for all to see. Very little of her works were published while Emily was still alive. After her death her sister found her works and published them (Benders: 140) Emily is still one of the most well respected and influential writers today. All the things that happened in her life affected how she wrote and what she wrote about. Emily suffered through a lot of death,but through this, death became one of her main themes in her poetry. Due to her love for nature Emily made it one of her prominent themes as well. Other things such as the civil war, time and eternity, and death are presented as common themes. Most of her life was spent in seclusion, but this seclusion led to her beautiful writings,which influenced other poets and the literature world in general. Emily Dickinson will forever be recognized as an astonishing writer.

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