Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886) was an American poet who lived much of her life in seclusion in Amherst, Massachusetts, and produced one of the most distinctive bodies of work in English-language poetry. [1] Fewer than a dozen of her roughly 1,800 poems appeared in print during her lifetime, and her innovative use of the dash, slant rhyme, and irregular capitalization was recognized only after her death. [2] The posthumous publication of her verse, beginning in 1890, established her as a central figure of American literature. [3]
Early life and education
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born on 10 December 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts, into a prominent family whose fortunes were bound to the town and its college. [1] Her father, Edward Dickinson, was a lawyer and treasurer of Amherst College, and the household was shaped by New England Congregationalist tradition. She attended Amherst Academy for seven years and then spent a year at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, but she left without completing the course and returned to the family home, where she would spend nearly all of her remaining life. [2]
A secluded life
From her twenties onward Dickinson increasingly withdrew from public life, rarely leaving the family property and eventually receiving few visitors. [1] Much of her social contact was conducted through letters, of which more than a thousand survive, exchanged with friends, family, and literary correspondents such as the writer and editor Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Far from being idle, this retirement coincided with her most intense period of composition, and she also kept an extensive garden, a pursuit for which she was locally admired. [2]
Poetry
Dickinson composed close to 1,800 poems, most of them short lyrics gathered by hand into small stitched booklets later called fascicles. [2] Her verse is distinguished by compressed language, frequent dashes, off-kilter or slant rhyme, and idiosyncratic capitalization, often set within the metrical patterns of hymns. Recurring subjects include death, immortality, nature, and the inner life of the mind. During her lifetime only a handful of her poems reached print, generally anonymously and often altered by editors to fit conventional taste. [3]
Posthumous publication
Dickinson died in Amherst on 15 May 1886. After her death her sister Lavinia discovered the cache of manuscripts and sought to have them published. [1] A first selection, edited by Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd, appeared in 1890 and proved popular, though early editions smoothed her punctuation and phrasing. [3] A scholarly text restoring her original wording and dashes was established by Thomas H. Johnson in 1955. [2]
Legacy
Once regarded as an eccentric minor figure, Dickinson came to be seen as one of the foremost poets in the American tradition, admired for a concentrated, exploratory style that anticipated later modernist writing. [3] Her home in Amherst is preserved as a museum, and she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in recognition of her lasting influence. [1]
