Emily Dickinson

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Emily Dickinson

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson, was born on December 10, 1830 in the small town of Amherst, Massachusetts. Emily was born into a wealthy and well-known family. Living with her father, mother, sister, and brother, Emily went through emotional problems as a child. Her father, Edward Dickinson, was a lawyer, treasurer of Amherst College, and a member of Congress. He was an orthodox Calvinist and he raised his family to be very religious (www.online-literature.com/dickinson). On May 6, 1828, Edward married Emily Norcross (Ferlazzo 11). Emily Norcross was a housewife and she also lived very religiously. She was very depressed for most of her life, which caused distance between her and the rest of her family. The distance with her mother actually caused Emily Dickinson to write that she “never had a mother” (www.kirjasto.sci.fi/emilydic.htm). On April 16th, 1829 Emily’s brother William Austin was born. Emily and her brother constantly competed with one another because of the fact that they were both poets.. Emily Dickinson’s younger sister, Lavinia Norcross Dickinson, was born on February 28, 1833. Lavinia took the liberty of publishing Emily’s poetry after she passed away. Emily attended school at Amherst Academy and Mount Holyoke Female Seminary (Ferlazzo 11).

1850 was the year that Emily first got her start in poetry writing. Her first poem, “Sic Transit Gloria Mundi,” was published in the Springfield Republican (Knapp 14). At the end of the Civil War, Emily Dickinson reduced the people she kept in contact with to only those she knew through Amherst. She dressed in nothing but white clothing and became a recluse. It is believed that Emily may have had an affair with Reverend Charles Wadsworth or Samuel Bowels (www.online-literature.com/dickinson/). While Emily was in seclusion, there were many Dickinson family battles being fought (www.kirjasto.sci.fi/emilydic.htm). Emily suffered great emotional troubles during 1861 and it is not known whether she ever fully recovered. Emily contracted Bright’s disease at the age of 54. She died on May 15, 1886. Her poems were published by her sister, Lavinia, and her niece, Martha Dickinson Bianchi (www.kirjasto.sci.fi/emilydic.htm).

The central themes of Emily’s poetry were death, love, faith, power, nature, domesticity,...

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...ferent second stanza with seemingly secular views (Ferlazzo 39). In “This is My Letter to the World,” Dickinson shows her true seclusion from the world by observations and her disappointed love affairs. There were many indications within the poem that would suggest of her despair after her lovers and friends stopped writing, her only means of communication with the outside world (Ferlazzo 125). “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” and “I Felt a Funeral in My Brain” show her opposing views of death based upon her parents’ deaths, her father’s peacefully, and her mother’s sudden and harsh. Her religious standpoint lies in “Because I Could Not Stop for Death,” having the suitor symbolize God (Knapp 92). “There’s a Certain Slant of Light” exhibits similar views using strongly opposing words to show her contradiction of her views (Ferlazzo 116). “I Started Early - Took my Dog,” and “A bird came down the Walk” show how her observations during her isolation gave her two contrasting views of nature and how her childhood and a possible rape affected her writing (Knapp 70-73). In conclusion, Emily Dickinson was a notorious poetess whose deep and heartfelt poetry will forever be remembered.

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