Emily Dickinson

“The Belle of Amherst”

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!

Biography

Born December 10, 1830 in Amherst, MA

Educated at Amherst Academy

At 17, began college at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary; she became ill the spring of her first year and did not return

She would leave home only for short trips for the remainder of her life, leading scholars to speculate she may have been agoraphobic

Was She Weird?

Known for being a recluse, she didn’t leave her family’s homestead for any reason after the late 1860’s.She almost always wore white.She often lowered snacks and treats in baskets to neighborhood children from her window, careful never to let them see her face.

Dickinson’s Poetry

Regular meter—hymn meter and ballad meter, also known as Common meter– Quatrains– Alternating tetrameter and trimeter– Often 1st and 3rd lines rhyme, 2nd and 4th lines

rhyme in iambic pentameter

The use of dashesInfluenced by nature and spiritual themes

Dickinson’s Publishing Career

Sent poems to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a literary critic and family friend.He recognized her talent, but tried to “improve” them, which made Dickinson lose interest.At the time of her death, only seven of her poems had been published.

Posthumous Publication and Legacy

After her death, her poems were heavily edited and published by Higginson and friend Mabel Loomis Todd.

Thomas Johnson produced a collection of Dickinson’s more than 1700 poems in three volumes in 1955; he restored her original capitalization and punctuation.

Along with Walt Whitman, Dickinson is one of the two giants of American poetry of the 19th century.