Emily Dickinson

539 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Theme of death in dickinsons poems

Recognized for experimenting with poetry, Emily Dickinson is said to be one of the greatest American poets. Her work was an amazing success even after being published four years after her death in 1890. Eleven editions of Dickinson’s work were published in less than two years. Emily Dickenson’s personal life, literary influences and romantic sufferings were the main inspirations for her poetry.
Biographers feel that the secret inspiration to Dickinson's poetry can be discovered by examining her personal life. During the 1860s and 1870s, Dickinson grew even more reclusive. She turned away almost every visitor who came to see her, and she locked herself in her room for days at a time. Later on, a number of people close to Dickinson died in quick succession. These people included her mother, her friend Judge Otis Lord, her young nephew, her close friend Helen Fiske Hunt and Dr. Charles Wadsworth.
Literary influences such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Charlotte Bronte and Benjamin Franklin Newton, were another big part of her inspiration. Emily Dickinson admired the poetry of John Keat...

Show More
Related

  • “Because I could not stop for Death” and “Annabel Lee”: Similarities, Differences, and Their Authors

    1506 Words  | 4 Pages

    “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 ...

    Read More

  • Comparing and Contrasting Dickinson’s Poems, Because I Could Not Stop for Death and I Heard a Fly Buzz- When I Died

    846 Words  | 2 Pages

    Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born on 10th December, 1830, in the town of Amherst, Massachusetts. As a young child, she showed a bright intelligence, and was able to create many recognizable writings. Many close friends and relatives in Emily’s life were taken away from her by death. Living a life of simplicity and aloofness, she wrote poetry of great power: questioning the nature of immortality and death. Although her work was influenced by great poets of the time, she published many strong poems herself. Two of Emily Dickinson’s famous poems, “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” and “I Heard a Fly Buzz- When I Died”, are both about life’s one few certainties, death, and that is where the similarities end.

    Read More

  • Emily Dickinson Influences

    590 Words  | 2 Pages

    On December 10, 1830, in a town called Amherst, Massachusetts, Emily Dickinson was born (poets.org). Family and friends would come to know her as a loving individual, but to the rest of the world she would become one of the best known poets from the 19th century. Writing over 1,800 poems in all; however, few have been published. Many of her poems are used today to connect with everyday life. Taking a look at her family life will help you understand how she was able to write so many poems and also some of the major influences in life (“Emily Dickinson”).

    Read More

  • Emily Dickinson Influences

    880 Words  | 2 Pages

    Emily Dickinson was a different type of poet that has people thinking of things people would never think about in another author’s work. Dickinson was born and raised with the rich life with only two siblings. Her work was inspired by her much of her childhood and the people she interacted with. An example of Dickinson’s different type of style is, “ So I conclude that space and time are things of the body and have little or nothing to do with ourselves. My Country is Truth,”(Berry) Emily Dickinson did not share hardly any of her writing when she was alive. According to Berry,” With the exception of six poems that appeared in newspapers at various times, and another that appeared in a collection of stories and poems in 1878, Emily Dickinson never published her work,” (Berry) Even though Dickinson wrote differently, does not mean she had a different lifestyle compared to most people today. Dickinson was an outstanding American poet where her childhood, family and friends, religion, and education inspired most of her poetry.

    Read More

  • Emily Dickinson: Life and Literature

    1064 Words  | 3 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Emily Dickinson and Charles Wright

    1684 Words  | 4 Pages

    Although, Emily Dickinson physically isolated herself from the world she managed to maintain friendships by communicating through correspondence. Ironically, Dickinson’s poetry was collected and published after her death. Dickinson explores life and death in most of her poems by questioning the existence of God. Dickinson applies common human experiences as images to illustrate the connection from the personal level of the human being, to a universal level of faith and God. This can be seen in Dickinson’s Poem (I, 45).

    Read More

  • Emily Dickinson

    1559 Words  | 4 Pages

    Emily Dickinson lived in an era of Naturalism and Realism (1855-1910). She lived in a period of The Civil War and the Frontier. She was affected by her life and the era she lived in. She also had many deaths in her family and that’s part of the reason that she was very morbid and wrote about death.

    Read More

  • Dickinson and Her religion

    1059 Words  | 3 Pages

    Emily Dickinson was one of the greatest woman poets. She left us with numerous works that show us her secluded world. Like other major artists of nineteenth-century American introspection such as Emerson, Thoreau, and Melville, Dickinson makes poetic use of her vacillations between doubt and faith. The style of her first efforts was fairly conventional, but after years of practice she began to give room for experiments. Often written in the meter of hymns, her poems dealt not only with issues of death, faith and immortality, but with nature, domesticity, and the power and limits of language.

    Read More

  • A Comparison Of 'I' M Nobody Who Are You?

    1287 Words  | 3 Pages

    Emily Dickinson is deemed one of the great American poets. She wrote nearly one thousand eight hundred poems (Tredell). However, only a few of her poems were published in her lifetime. She was a peculiar women often called the “Myth” (Tredell). She was given this nickname because she had many speculations about her. Emily Dickinson, the woman poet, adapted her own way of living and a writing style that was different than anyone had seen before.

    Read More

  • Emily Dickinson

    742 Words  | 2 Pages

    the year that one of the most influential poets in the world was born. Emily

    Read More

  • Emily Dickinson

    1012 Words  | 3 Pages

    Dickinson grew up in a very strict Puritan family. However, her poetry did not reflect her Puritan upbringing at all. As the late eighteen sixties came about, Dickinson became very attached to her family home and refused to leave it. She cut off most of her relationships with her friends. The only way she could express her feelings was through her writing. She eventually died in 1886 of a kidney condition called Bright’s disease. Against Dickinson’s request, her sister Lavinia turned over the rest of her work to be published.

    Read More

  • Emily Dickinson Personification

    698 Words  | 2 Pages

    Death happens after humans live. Death is something that people fear, something only some people want. Emily Dickinson’s poem, “Because I could not stop for Death”, describes how death himself took her on a journey, life to afterlife. He is kind and friendly. “Because I could not stop for Death”, is a friendly poem.

    Read More

  • The Nature of Death in Emily Dickinson's Poems

    2260 Words  | 5 Pages

    Emily Dickinson, who achieved more fame after her death, is said to be one of the greatest American poets of all time. Dickinson communicated through letters and notes and according to Amy Paulson Herstek, author of “Emily Dickinson: Solitary and Celebrated Poet,” “Writing was the way she kept in touch with the world” (15). Dickinson’s style is unique and although unconventional, it led to extraordinary works of literature. Dickinson lived her life in solitude, but in her solitude she was free to read, write and think which led to her nonconformity and strong sense of individualism. Suzanne Juhasz, a biographer of Dickinson, sums up most critics’ idea of Dickinson ideally: “Emily Dickinson is at once the most intimate of poets, and the most guarded. The most self-sufficient, and the neediest. The proudest, and the most vulnerable. These contradictions, which we as her readers encounter repeatedly in her poems, are understandable, not paradoxical, for they result from the tension between the life to which she was born and the one to which she aspired” (1). Dickinson poured her heart and soul into over 1,700

    Read More

  • Emily Dickinson Thesis

    1157 Words  | 3 Pages

    stine Mack Mrs. McKenna English ll Honors 5 March 2017 Thesis: Emily Dickinson is master of imagery because she uses imagery for ambiguity and to exemplify the other devices in her works which themes are death, nature, love, and pain. Emily Dickinson's past has to do with her future writings and her foundation for her poems. Many poets have their own style of writing; their own uniqueness Emily dickinson brings out her ambiguity in her imagery and poems Emily is a master of imagery B.

    Read More

  • Emily Dickinson's Poetry

    1005 Words  | 3 Pages

    Death is a common theme found throughout many of Emily Dickinson’s poems. Although much of Emily Dickinson’s work deals with death, she interprets death differently in nearly all of the poems she wrote concerning the subject. Her poems centering on death are at times peaceful, at times disturbing, at times morbid, and sometimes they show death as something to be expected or anticipated. Emily Dickinson’s poems “I heard a Fly buzz – when I died” and “Because I could not stop for Death” are both centered on her fascination with death; however, each poem conveys a different viewpoint about the afterlife. Although both poems convey slightly different viewpoints about death, the poem “I heard a Fly buzz – when I died” is better because Emily Dickinson

    Read More

More about Emily Dickinson

Open Document