The Influence Of Personal Experiences In Emily Dickinsons Poetry

The Influence of Personal Experiences In Emily Dickinson's Poetry

None of Emily Dickinson's readers has met the woman who lived and died in Amherst, Massachusetts more than a century ago, yet most of those same readers feel as if they know her closely. Her reclusive life made understanding her quite difficult. However, taking a close look at her verses, one can learn a great deal about this remarkable woman. The poetry of Emily Dickinson delves deep into her mind, exposing her personal experiences and their influence on her thoughts about religion, love, and death. By examining her life some, and reading her poetry in a certain light, one can see an obvious autobiographical connection. All the beliefs and emotions Emily Dickinson wrote about were based, in one way or another, on the same aspect of her upbringing, which was religion.

During her childhood, life in Amherst was based strongly upon religion and

Puritan values. The distinctive Puritan virtues of simplicity, austerity, hard work, and denial of flesh, were ever-present disciplines in Emily's life (Sewall

22). Despite her stubborn denials to be labeled, she was very much of a “New

Englander”. Cynthia Griffen Wolff, author of Emily Dickinson, points out that

Emily “knew every line of the Bible intimately, quoted from it extensively, and referred to it many more times than she referred to any other work... yet in this regard she was not unusual by Amherst's standards” (72). The most prominent figure of religious virtues in her life was her father, Edward

Dickinson. Reading the Bible to his children and speaking in town of religious ethics were daily events in his life. At home, he tried to raise his children in the rigorous religion of their ancestors, however his methods appeared quite harsh. People who knew the Dickinsons referred to Edward as a “severe, latter- day Puritan, a power-minded tyrant...”, and his home was often depicted as a “ gloomy prison” (Sewall 8). In fact, Emily's fear and awe of him seemed to dominate her life. Although he read aloud from his Bible, conducted prayer service in his home daily, and he educated his children in a strict Puritan way, he himself was not quite a believer. He delayed conversion until well into middle age, “...displayed no mark of singular devotion, defined his vocation in terms of business, an...

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...ath - distancing it, coming to terms with it, and finding no fear in it” (Sewall 665).

The personal experiences of Emily Dickinson had a great influence on her poetry. Through her verses we can understand and relate to her much more easily.

Without them, her withdrawal from society would have kept her unknown. Once she wrote:

This is my letter to the World

That never wrote to Me -

The simple News that Nature told -

With tender Majesty

Her Message is committed

To Hands I cannot see -

For love of Her - Sweet - countrymen -

Judge tenderly - of Me

It seems fairly obvious that Emily Dickinson knew that someday her poems would be found and would be used as a window into her thoughts.