How Did Emily Dickinson Change The World

2/27/16

Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson was an amazing woman and writer. She wrote many unique poems in her years of writing. Most of her poems are about death and immorality. Emily was born December 10th 1830 and died May 15th 1866. It was believed the Emily died of Bright’s disease after her mother and siblings passed away. Emily Dickinson was a woman, who inspired many others and even helped change the world through her poems.

Emily‘s parents are Emily and Edward Dickinson who also have two other kids. Emily is the middle child with an older brother name William and Lavinia. She was born in Amherst, Massachusetts and lived on the family Homestead for seven years after it was sold out of the family. Emily enjoyed duties like baking and gardening along with school, church, reading and writing. She

started writing poetry pursued her calling as a poet in her teen years.
Emily’s first school was Amherst academy and later she attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary for a year. Amherst academy became known as the best private schools in the state. Emily Dickinson attended Amherst Academy for seven years. Both her and her brother studied at the academy. They also both graduated in 1860 and served as Amherst College treasurers. In the seminary there were 234 students with Emily being the youngest at sixteen. She was promoted to middle class around the midterms. The principal was “raising her standards of scholarship a good deal and on account of that she makes the examinations more severe than usual” (L18).
Questions concerning her love life came about after readers read her poems containing love. Emily Dickinson was never married. Emily wrote three letters to an unidentified person she called master. These letters revealed passionate feelings towards the “Master.” In her later years she had a relationship with a man named Judge Otis Lord. Fifteen manuscripts were found about her and Lord’s relationship. A few of the manuscripts suggests that Emily and Judge contemplated marriage. Lord died in 1884 two years before Emily.
Dickinson’s most intense period of productivity as a poet concur with the years of the Civil War. It is thought that about half of her poems were writing during to this time, but it isn’t known if any of her poems correspond with the war. There is one poem to be believed to relate to the war. “It feels a shame to be Alive-" (Fr524) is believed to be referring to the war. Her friend Higginson fought in the Civil War.
Emily composed about 1800 poems in her lifetime. “Contemporary accounts indicate that her formal writing was done in her bedroom, a place that, as she once described to her niece Martha, afforded her "freedom" (Bianchi, p. 66). She wrote about what she knew and things that interested her such as; nature, death, religion and much more. Her nature poems appreciated liveliness and the beauty of nature. Emily implies in one of her poems that love is impossible to define. Emily’s poetry is seen as lyrics, defined as short poems with a speaker who expresses their feelings and thoughts. Many of her poems are abstract ideas and material things are used to explain each other. The relation between her poems remains complex and unpredictable.

Emily stood up for what she believed and did what she thought was right.

Emily believed in the Calvinism religion. Even though women weren’t a loud to read or write Emily took the time to learn. She wrote a lot of odd poetry expressing her feelings. Throughout her life, Emily was told no one would like anything she wrote. Emily’s writing in fact inspired a lot of people in many different ways.

Ever since Emily was a child she studied Calvinism along with her family. Calvinism is a reformed Christianity, which is a branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice of John Calvin and other Reformation-era theologians. Emily and her family attended local religious services at the village meetinghouse in Amherst’s. In her teen years, one by one, her friends and family made a public profession of their belief in Christ to become full members of the church. Emily struggled with her relationship over God. Dickinson didn’t join the church because she wanted to stay true to herself. "I feel that the world holds a predominant place in my affections. I do not feel that I could give up all for Christ, were I called to die"

(L13).
In Dickinson’s adult life her main medical concern was an eye affliction suffered in her thirties. From her letters, there seems to be several theories to what she was suffering with. Based on the clues it seemed that she suffered from iritis. This disease is an inflammation of the iris of the eyes. “Her doctor’s orders for confinement in dim light, no reading, and writing only with a pencil explain why she called her first Cambridge siege “eight months of Siberia” (Sewall, Lyman Letters, p. 76). She still managed to write her letters, but she had to do it in pencil she wrote “I work in my prison, and make Guests for myself” (L290).

Dickinson experienced lots of death in her life from family and friends to her own. Emily died on the May 15, 1886 from Bright’s disease. Bright’s disease is a chronic inflammation in the kidneys. In the 1800s Dickinson experienced the loss of several friends including her boyfriend of many years.