1. 1830 - 1886

2. Her legacy Dickinson is bracketed with Walt Whitman as having all but invented American poetry. She felt no urge to read him, however, telling a friend, “I never read his book... but was told that he was disgraceful.” William Carlos Williams called Dickinson his “patron saint.”

3. Her poetry Filled with questions and riddles. She did not write for publication. Only ten of her nearly 1800 poems were published during her lifetime. Poetry reflects Protestant upbringing – using the hymnology and biblical imagery. Uses the dash (possibly for fragmentation and great stress). Her poetry is not constrained by form.

4. Feminist Critiques Defiance of literary and social authority has appealed to feminist critics. She is placed in the company of Anne Bradstreet, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sylvia Plath, and Adrienne Rich.

5. Her life Born on December 10, 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts. Daughter of a respected lawyer and, at one time, a member of congress. Father was an imposing figure; upon his death in 1874, she wrote, “His heart was pure and terrible, and I think no other like it exists.” She listened to his funeral service from an upstairs bedroom.

6. Her life All the Dickinson men were attorneys with political ambitions. In an 1852 letter written to one of her close friends, Dickinson shows the effect of growing up in a household of dominant males: “Why can’t I be a Delegate to the great Whig convention? Don’t I know all about Daniel Webster and the Tarriff and the Law?”

7. Contemporaries Though she had not read Whitman, she was well versed in other contemporary poets and authors (Keats, Emerson, Brontes). This is evidenced by her discussions with friends through letters.

8. School Graduated from Amherst Academy when she was seventeen. In her brother’s words, “She dazzled her teachers...” She entered into a female seminary next (only a few miles from Amherst). She returned home after less than a year, having resisted the pressure to become a professing Christian. In a letter to a friend, she shares these sentiments: “Christ is calling everyone here, all my companions have answered...and I am standing alone in rebellion.”

9. Withdrawing from the Public In the sixties, she increasingly withdrew from the public. She wore all white, and she dedicated much of her time to writing. She gathered fair copies of 1147 poems, and put 833 of them in individual packets.

10. Debate Continuing debate: in what ways should Dickinson’s writing appear in print? Respect to punctuation, use of variants, and lineation have a major influence on how her poems are read and understood. Her first editors tidied up some of her roughness. In 1955, all of her texts were reproduced without editorial changes.

11. Works Cited “Emily Dickinson.” The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry. Third Edition. 2003. Print. The Oxford Companion to Women’s Writing in the United States. Oxford University Press Inc. 1995.