Emily Dickinson 1830 - 1886

The Dickinson Homestead in Amherst, Massachusetts

Early Life She was born to religious, well-to-do family and had a normal childhood in Amherst, Massachusetts. Everyone expected her to marry and raise a family like most women of her class. This all suddenly changed when she was 24.

She became a poet and recluse. “Dickinson used precise language and unique poetic forms to simultaneously reveal and conceal her private thoughts and feelings” (Elements of Literature 345). What happened to turn a young girl into an unrecognized poet who never left her house?

What would cause a young woman of 24 suddenly to isolate herself within her yard and house and ignore the world outside?

12 years in isolation in her parents home

Speculations about Why Went to DC with her father, a congressman, because she had fallen in love with a married lawyer, who soon died of TB. There fell in love with another married man, a minister. He moved to San Francisco in 1862. About this time she wrote, “I sing as the boy does by the burying ground, because I am afraid.”

Return to Amherst Within a few years, she had retreated from all social life in Amherst. Always wearing white, like the bride she would never be, she remained in her parents’ house and restricted herself to household work and writing poetry, which she would sometimes send to people as gifts for valentines or birthdays, along with a pie or cookies.

Only a few of her poems were published in her lifetime. She sent four of them to a critic, Mr. Higginson, asking for his help. When he sent suggestions for changing her poems, she replied in a letter, “Thank you for the surgery; it was not so painful as I supposed. I bring you others, as you ask” (Higginson).

After her death, friends and relatives found bundles of her poems, which they edited and “corrected” and had published in installments. In 1955, Thomas H. Johnson finally published a collection of her poems that had not been “corrected.” These are the versions we read today.

Here are two versions of one stanza of one of her poems Here are two versions of one stanza of one of her poems. The first is unedited; the second has been “corrected.” We passed the School, where Children strove At recess—in the Ring— We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain— We passed the Setting Sun— We passed the school where children played Their lessons scarcely done; We passed the fields of gazing grain, We passed the setting sun. See the differences? How does the poem change?

Why was she a poet? Many people have commented that there are no great woman artists. Would Emily Dickinson have become such a renowned poet if she had married and had children?

What sort of poet was she? Dickinson is known for using poetry as private observation. Her poems are carefully crafted in rhyme and meter. She is known for her use of slant rhyme: rhymes that are not exact but only approximate. Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all.

Heart. We will forget him. You and I—tonight Heart! We will forget him! You and I—tonight! You may forget the warmth he gave— I will forget the light! When you have done, pray tell me That I many straight begin! Haste! Lest while you’re lagging I remember him! This shows a conflict between her mind and her heart. What controls you, your mind or your heart? Is she referring to unrequited love (love that is not returned) or love that is impossible because of the circumstances?

Another Poet Writes about Dickinson: We think of her hidden in a white dress among the folded linens and sachets of well-kept cupboards, or just out of sight sending jellies and notes with no address to all the wondering Amherst neighbors. Eccentric as New England weather the stiff wind of her mind, stinging or gentle, blew two half-imagined lovers off. Yet legend won’t explain the sheer sanity of vision, the serious mischief of language, the economy of pain. --Linda Pastan (Elements of Literature 371)