Nudity, power, beauty, paradise, knowledge, authority, rebellion, anger, punishment,
and injustice: these are all themes that Emily Dickinson.s poetry grapples with and repeatedly
explores. They are also themes that she found in the Genesis narrative of Adam and Eve in
her King James Version of the Bible.
As a central influence in Dickinson.s Nineteenth Century, Puritan, New England
society, the Bible was a primary text at both Amherst Academy and Mount Holyoke, where
Dickinson attended (Sewell 362). At home, Dickinson.s father read a chapter a day to his
family (Sewell 694), and at age 14, he gave her a copy of the King James text (Seelbinder 18).
Everyone in her life encouraged Emily Dickinson to study the Bible, hoping it would bring her
close to God and would convince her to join the church. In Dickinson.s hands, however, the
Bible had the opposite effect.
At age sixteen, Emily Dickinson wrote a letter to her friend Abiah Root, which
contained the following passage:
I have lately come to the conclusion that I am Eve, alias Mrs. Adam. You
know there is no account of her death in the Bible, and why am not I Eve? If
you find any statements which you think likely to prove the truth of the case, I
wish you would send them to me without delay. (L9)
Why would Emily Dickinson choose to call herself Eve, the woman responsible for original sin
and the fall of humankind? Dickinson.s intimate knowledge of the Bible did lead her to
identify with Eve. Through this identification, Emily Dickinson found a way to make the
Bible work for her: it pushed her further away from God and from the beliefs of the Puritan
church. Dickinson.s poetry illustrates her identification with Eve and how this identif...
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Exposing the Hypocrisy of Religion in Emily Dickinson’s Some Keep the Sabbath Going to Church
(In these lines Dickinson doubts the sense of religious claims about life, death and life after death). Her cryptic language thus became part of her search for truth and personal clarification. She couched her poetry in ambiguous, complex and multi-layered language - in this form it became both a defence, and a game. The riddles concealed her anarchy, her dissension and her audaciousness in questioning the status quo. She achieved her most audacious commentaries and attacks on American perceptions and values through riddle and ruse; by ellipsis, dodge, a vague daring, an evident superiority of language and idea, staying virtually unknown . The ambiguities in the riddles were her defence against authority, religious tyranny and "norm" thinking.
The Victorian Female Friendship and Homosexual References in Emily Dickinson's Work While some might believe that Dickinson is a chaste and eclectic hermit from New England, I found her work to be saturated in oblique (by today's standards) sexual references, many of which would be referred to today as lesbian. Homosexual imagery is not what typically comes to mind when thinking of works by Emily Dickinson, but I found that element to be present while reading select poetry and letters from her repertoire. Ongoing debate seems to be centered on the nature and commonality of romantic friendships, and the extent to which female interrelations must progress before acquiring the nomenclature of "lesbian. " I tend to agree with Lillian
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...
The famous well-known poet, Emily Elizabeth Dickinson, was born on December 10, 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts. Growing up, she was busy with schooling, religious activities, gardening, baking, and exploring nature. Her family was well known in Massachusetts; her dad was a member of the governor’s cabinet and a US Congressman. In 1840, she attended Amherst Academy. At Amherst Academy, she was an excellent student. Many said she caught much attention and was very original in the way she presented herself. Dickinson’s poetry has a great amount of scientific vocabulary and she gained most of her knowledge about it at this academy. Seven years later, she enrolled in Mount Holyoke Female Seminary. At Mount Holyoke, she was academically successful and was very involved. Like most institutions at the time, Mount Holyoke believed that the students’ religious lives were part of responsibility. Dickinson refused to take part of the school’s Christian evangelical efforts. She had not given up on the claims of Christ, but didn’t think it was an important matter.
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.
Dickinson was educated in a traditionally Protestant, provincial community and in a religious conservative schools and churches in Amherst and South Hadley. This affected Dickinson as a poet of religious concern, stimulating her to opposition as well as reverence. The Calvinist God she was taught to worship was an arbitrary God of absolute power. She struggles prodigiously in her writing against such an image of God, but also invokes it normally.
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.
“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 ...
Emily Dickinson was an intricate and contradictory figure who moved from a reverent faith in God to a deep suspicion of him in her works. (Sherwood 3) Through her own intentional choice she was, in her lifetime, considered peculiar. Despite different people and groups trying to influence her, she resisted making a public confession of faith to Christ and the Church. (Sherwood 10) She wanted to establish her own wanted to establish her own individuality and, in doing so, turned to poetry. (Benfey 27) Dickinson’s poems were a sort of channel for her feelings and an “exploration” of her faith (Benfey 27).
"Arguing with herself, Dickinson considers three major resolutions for the frustrations she is seeking to define and to resolve. Each of these resolutions is expressed in negative form: living wither her lover, dying with him, and discovering a world beyond nature. Building on this series of negations, Dickinson advances a catalogue of reasons for her covenant with despair, which are both final and insufficient. Throughout, she excoriates the social and religious authorities that impede her union, but she remains emotionally unconvinced that she has correctly identified her antagonists." (Pollack, 182)
Emily Dickinson had a fascination with death and mortality throughout her life as a writer. She wrote many poems that discussed what it means not only to die, but to be dead. According to personal letters, Dickinson seems to have remained agnostic about the existence of life after death. In a letter written to Mrs. J. G. Holland, Emily implied that the presence of death alone is what makes people feel the need for heaven: “If roses had not faded, and frosts had never come, and one had not fallen here and there whom I could not waken, there were no need of other Heaven than the one below.” (Bianchi 83). Even though she was not particularly religious, she was still drawn to the mystery of the afterlife. Her poetry is often contemplative of the effect or tone that death creates, such as the silence, decay, and feeling of hopelessness. In the poem “I died for beauty,” Dickinson expresses the effect that death has on one's identity and ability to impact the world for his or her ideals.
In "Faith"..., Dickinson presents a witty and biting satirical look at Faith and its limitations. While it still amuses readers today, it must be mentioned that this short poem would have had a greater impact and seriousness to an audience from the period Dickinson lived in. Dickinson was raised in a strict Calvinist household and received most of her education in her youth at a boarding school that also followed the American Puritanical tradition she was raised in. In this short, witty piece Dickinson addresses two of the main obsessions of her generation: The pursuit of empirical knowledge through science, faith in an all-knowing, all-powerful Christian god and the debate on which was the more powerful belief. In this poem Dickinson uses humor to ease her position in the debate on to the reader. Dickinson uses her ability to write humourously and ironically (as seen in her suggestion of the use of microscopes) to present a firm, controversial opinion into w...
...ion or not, people come across the thought on what will happen to themselves after death. The poem best shows the people’s fear and doubtfulness toward the subject of death. Additionally, the reason that Emily Dickinson wrote the poem is quite clear: she also wanted an answer for the mysterious life after death, which no one has an answer to.