Emily Dickinson 1830-1886

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Emily Dickinson 1830-1886
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• Born in 1830 (second of three children) in
  Amherst, Massachusetts
• Father a lawyer, wealthy and respected citizens,
  trustee of Amherst College

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• Dickinson grew up regularly attending services at
  the First Congregational Church
• Eventuallystoppedattendingregularly

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• Attended Amherst Academy, where she studied a
  modern curriculum

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• She attended Mount Holyoke Seminary (now Mount
  Holyoke College) then as now an innovative
  school for women

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• Around 1850, she began to write poems, which she
  circulated among friends
• Her poem Sic transit gloria mundi was published
  in the Springfield Daily Republican in 1852

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• During the 1860s, she stopped socializing and
  became a recluse, staying in the family home

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• We dont know why she withdrew from friends and
  society
• Some speculate that the death of her dog (Carlo
  a Newfoundland a gift from her father) had
  something to do with it

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• Among her remaining intimates was her
  sister-in-law, Susan wife of her older brother
  Austin

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• She began corresponding with a local
  intellectual, Thomas Wentworth Higginson

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• Higginson became a kind of mentor, a relationship
  that continued for the rest of her life
• After her death, Higginson helped to publish the
  first edition of her work
• Dickinson wrote more than 1,700 poems
• Only eight were published during her lifetime

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• Dickinson spent most of her time reading and
  writing poetry
• She called writing poetry her business
• She copied many of her poems into hand-sewn small
  booklets or fascicles and sent them as gifts to
  family and friends

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• According to tradition, Dickinson dressed
  entirely in white and communicated only
  indirectly with visitors and friends, from behind
  a folding screen or via notes and gifts in a
  basket she let down from her window into the
  garden

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• When Dickinson died in 1886 of Brights disease,
  her family was surprised at the amount of work
  she left behind
• Her sister Lavinia found 40 notebooks and loose
  poems in a locked box in her bedroom

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• Lavinia (Vinnie) asked sister-in-law Susan to
  edit the poems for publication
• When Susan seemed to procrastinate the project,
  Lavinia turned to another family friend, Mabel
  Loomis Todd

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• A little scandal it later turned out that Mabel
  Todd had been having a secret affair with Austin
  Dickinson for some 13 years

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• Mabel Todd and Thomas Higginson together
  undertook the first publication of Emily
  Dickinsons poems

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• Higginson edited and corrected her poems for
  punctuation and conventional usage
• It was not until 1955 that Dickinsons work was
  collected and published in its original form
  by Thomas Johnson

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Corrected versionfrom Because I could not
stop for Death

• We passed the school where children played
• Their lessons scarcely done
• We passed the fields of gazing grain,
• We passed the setting sun.

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Original version

• We passed the School, where Children strove
• At recessin the Ring
• We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain
• We passed the Setting Sun

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Characteristics of Dickinsons Poems

• Rhythm mirrors church hymns
• Idiosyncratic punctuation, often using dashes for
  pauses and emphasis
• Capitalization emphasizes key words, sometimes
  indicates abstractions

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Dickinsons approximate rhymes

• EYE rhyme (though / through)
• VOWEL rhyme (see / buy)
• SLANT (or HALF) rhyme (bear / boar)

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Dickinsons themes

• Her own identity / status
• Personal interactions with nature
• Inner spirituality as distinct from religion
• Pain
• Ecstasy (encounters with the sublime)
• Death (in particular, the process of transition)

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