How Did Emily Dickinson's Life Influence Her Poetry

Emily Dickinson was an American poet, who was quite reclusive. Although she was unrecognized in her own time, she is extremely well known now and mostly for her innovative use of form and syntax. She began writing as a teenager and became very influenced by Leonard Humphrey, who was the principal of Amherst Academy where she attended school. In addition to Humphrey she also highly respected family friend, Benjamin Franklin Newton, who sent her a book of poetry by Ralph Waldo Emerson. It wasn’t until after her death in 1886 that her sister, Lavinia discovered a large number of her Emily’s poems and had them published in 1890. However, it wasn’t until 1955 that a full compilation titled The Poems of Emily Dickinson was published. Emily Dickinson had a large influence on the direction of 20th-century poetry, and her work and eccentric characteristics continue to be discussed today. Dickinson’s poems deal with death again and again, although it is never quite the same in each one. In this particular poem, death is personified. Death is seen as a gentle guide, leading her to eternity. The speaker of the poem, is describing her journey from life to afterlife and her journey with Death. In the beginning of the poem she states, “Because I could not stop

“We passed the school, where children strove/At Recess – in the Ring,” (Dickinson, 1863, lines 9-10). These lines provide a vision of a school scene of children playing, which could be emotional, is instead only an example of the difficulty of life. Although the children are playing “At Recess,” (Dickinson, line 10), the verb she uses is “strove,” (Dickinson, line 9), which emphasizes the labors of existence. The use of “We passed” (Dickinson, line 11), which emphasizes the tiring repetitiveness of mundane routine in life and the boredom that comes with