Preliminary Thesis: During both the 21st and 19th centuries, Emily Dickinson has received both praises and criticisms regarding her themes, style, and form.
Emily Dickinson has transcended the accepted standards and forms of her time in the eyes of modern analysts. Following the likes of Charlotte Bronte, her idol, she is considered a pioneer for modern poets around the world (poetryfoundation.org). Even though her poetry was not widely published during her lifetime, she corresponded with various mentors, who critiqued her writing. For instance, sister-in-law Susan Gilbert often wrote to her and read her poetry. Her close relationship allowed her to read just about every poem Emily wrote to proofread and provide input (poetryfoundation.org).
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However, he often tore apart her poetry and rejected her form as confusing and disorderly. (Godina).
However, Higginson did find her poetry to be intriguing and asked for more poems and information about her life and passions. Still, he urged her to remain unpublished because he believed her writing would be scorned for not adhering to the traditional standards of poetry of their time (Martin).
Her poems were often spread around close friends and family, who enjoyed her literary genius and creativity. Therefore, Dickinson’s work was considered important female reading material in the nineteenth century (poetryfoundation.org).
Various types of critics have interpreted Emily’s work in different ways. Those focusing on religions consider it a former account of Puritanism, feminists insist that her poetry is slander against a male-driven society, and others believe that sexuality serves as a major theme within her poetry (“Emily Dickinson”).
Most publishers would refuse to print Emily’s writing because many remained unfinished, they contain strange spelling and punctuation choices, and some poems have the same lines or phrases (“Emily
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Two critics, Northrop Frye and Richard Howard, commented on her limited range of topics, saying ‘there was only one event, herself’” (“Emily Dickinson”).
Regarding her popular theme of love, she is recognized as one of the most profound, genuine analysts. Her metaphors and diction enhance the poetry’s insightful messages and emotions (“Emily Dickinson”).
Furthermore, critics have nicknamed Emily the “poet of dread” as a result of her depressing tones at times, her stance on life and death, and the fear she possibly conjures up within her audience (“Emily Dickinson”).
While attempting to get her work printed, she met with and sent many poems to editors Samuel Bowles and Josiah Holland. Only seven of her poems delighted them, so they were printed into the newspaper (poetryfoundation.org). Rather than being ostracized for her bizarre literary choices and style, modern critics appreciate her creativity, brilliance, and boldness. So by overcoming the conventional standards of her era, she will now be considered a timeless author (“Selected
“Although Emily Dickinson is known as one of America’s best and most beloved poets, her extraordinary talent was not recognized until after her death” (Kort 1). Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830, in Amherst, Massachusetts, where she spent most of her life with her younger sister, older brother, semi-invalid mother, and domineering father in the house that her prominent family owned. As a child, she was curious and was considered a bright student and a voracious reader. She graduated from Amherst Academy in 1847, and attended a female seminary for a year, which she quitted as she considered that “’I [she] am [was] standing alone in rebellion [against becoming an ‘established Christian’].’” (Kort 1) and was homesick. Afterwards, she excluded herself from having a social life, as she took most of the house’s domestic responsibilities, and began writing; she only left Massachusetts once. During the rest of her life, she wrote prolifically by retreating to her room as soon as she could. Her works were influenced ...
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.
Hughes Gertrude Reif. (Spring 1986). Subverting the Cult of Domesticity: Emily Dickinson’s Critique of Woman’s Work. Legacy. Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 17-2
This decision to do so is a very personal one and shows how her being a private poet affected her poetry. Because if she was in society and being influenced by the people around her she most likely would not have learned about what she truly wanted and been able to put it down in
Emily Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts on December 10, 1830 and spent most of her life in her childhood home where she became known as “the Amherst Recluse.” She never married and traveled only occasionally. However, her inner life was so intense that a distinguished twentieth century poet and critic, Allen Täte, wrote, "All pity for Miss Dickinson's 'starved life' is misdirected. Her life was one of the richest and deepest ever lived on this continent." Dickinson’s life has proved a perplexing puzzle to many critics and biographers (Brand 12).
Breaking news revealing the truth about Emily Dickinson’s life has recently been uncovered. For the past hundred-plus years literary historians believed Dickinson to be a plain and quiet type of person who did not communicate with the public for most of her life. Her romanticism poetry drew attention from fellow literary legends. After corresponding with the well-known Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who showed interest in her work but advised her not to publish it, she became defiant to publish any of her work.
Throughout the vast majority of the Romantic Movement, Emily Dickinson’s work was the center of attention. This idea of romanticism; thinking outside of the box, questioning reality and challenging perception was all so foreign that readers and audiences everywhere could not help but begin to question their own awareness of the world around them. Similar to that of many other writers during the Romantic Movement, poet Emily Dickinson wrote all about her ideas that challenged actuality and the natural world. She wanted to explore human intellect, and exactly just what the mind was capable of doing.
Porter, David T. The Art of Emily Dickinson’s Early Poetry. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966. Print.
Emily Dickinson was an American poet who lived a mostly introverted and reclusive life and was known for her penchant for white clothing and her reluctance to greet guests, and later in life, to even leave her room. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a successful family with strong community ties, Dickinson attended primary school for four years, Amherst Academy for seven years, and Mount Holyoke Female Seminary for one year. As a young woman, she traveled to Philadelphia only to fall in love with a married minister, Reverend Charles Wadsworth. Dickinson experienced an emotional crisis of an undetermined nature in the early 1860’s. Her traumatized state of mind is believed to have inspired her to write prolifically.
Having completed around one thousand eight hundred poems, she is known for her talk of death, religion, and womanhood, all seen as controversial topics at the time she wrote them. Her discussion of the feminine is not apparent to the reader right away, within “My Life had stood a – loaded gun”. Dickinson tended to create hidden meanings within her poetry, so the reader must decipher her words. She speaks of the identity of women in a society run my men. The poem, great in its hidden meaning, holds thoughts of a woman’s destructive power of a long
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.
...w. These were before her turn on publishing commenced and after that never showed her poems to a publisher ever again and believed that by publishing the work it was like selling the royal air or selling free gifts from God. (Guthrie) It wasn’t until her sister discovered all of the poems in a fascicle within one of Dickinson’s drawers that they were sent to a publisher and published soon after. Now there are books and critics for Emily Dickinson’s work that has turned a woman who praised being a “nobody” and never publishing to a “somebody” that everyone loves.
In the other hand, Emily, despite having an unusual self-imposed private life, her poems were very conservative and structured. She mostly wrote ballad stanzas, which has four distinct lines with her own unique placement of punctuation and unusual grammar. She makes use exclusively of short, repetition, simple lines. An example of it is taken from a ballad poem “A still-Volcano-life”.
Emily Dickinson was an unrecognized poet her whole life. Her close family members recognized her talent, and her needs to write poetry, but the literary establishment of her time would not recognize her skill. Even though she was unrecognized, she was still quietly battling the established views through her poetry. Her literary struggle was exposed after her death since, while living, only five of her poems were published.