Emily Dickinson's Starved Life

Emily Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts on December 10, 1830 and spent most of her life in her childhood home where she became known as “the Amherst Recluse.” She never married and traveled only occasionally. However, her inner life was so intense that a distinguished twentieth century poet and critic, Allen Täte, wrote, "All pity for Miss Dickinson's 'starved life' is misdirected. Her life was one of the richest and deepest ever lived on this continent." Dickinson’s life has proved a perplexing puzzle to many critics and biographers (Brand 12).

Dickinson wrote many poems throughout her life, dealing with a variety of subjects including a lot that dealt with death but also many that included hopeful elements often seen as if through

Consequently, readers must fill in the missing thought, which seems to be that love makes everything like “rowing in Eden,” or paradise. Dickinson’s romantic allusions in “Wild Nights—Wild Nights!” may come as a surprise to readers who have thought of Emily Dickinson as the stereotypical introvert purposely rejecting life, including thoughts of romance, for the “higher calling” of art. At the time it was published, Dickinson’s friend and editor, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, actually expressed anxiety over the fact that the public might read into the poetry more than the innocent Dickinson had intended. Yet the fact is that “Wild Nights—Wild Nights!” is but one of many poems Dickinson composed on the subject of love. Her use of nature imagery attached to figurative ideas is also typical of her style as well as her use of dashes and seemingly random capitalization.

In “Success is Counted Sweetest,” the speaker says that “those who ne’er succeed” place the highest value on success. To understand the value of success, there must be an actual need or want for it. She says that the members who are victorious are not able to define victory as well as the defeated and she gives the example of a dying man who hears from a distance the music of the