Bi sexuality of emily dickinson The inner-workings of Emily Dickinson’s mind continue to be an enigma to literary scholars, worldwide. Dickinson’s agoraphobia caused her to live a solitary and secluded life in her Amherst, Massachusetts home for a large portion of her life. “She rarely received visitors, and in her mature years she never went out” (Ferguson, et. al.; 1895). It is also known that she was in love with a married man (no one knows for sure exactly who this man was) who eventually ended their relationship and this left her very distraught. Some scholars believe that at one point in her life, Dickinson suffered a nervous breakdown, possibly caused by the break-up of the relationship. A woman named Rebecca Patterson …show more content…
Many of Dickinson’s love poems had sexual undertones. There is an apparent difference between the sexually explicit poems that were written to men from the ones that were written to women. Poem # 616 is an example of a poem that was written to a man. This poem blatantly exhibits Dickinson’s sexual intercourse with a man and more specifically her description of an orgasm.
The first stanza has both Dickinson and her lover orgasm at the same time. Just as her lover is reaching his sexual peak, Dickinson (much to her surprise) started to reach hers. In the second stanza Dickinson states, “I sang firm-even-chants,” she is describing the feelings of rapture and bliss that she experiences as she is going through the orgasm. The third stanza describes the connection or closeness that they felt as their bodies soothed and recovered from their moment of ecstasy. The fourth stanza acts as an ode to her companion’s “low Arch of Flesh” (penis), which brought her so much pleasure. The fifth stanza in the poem is an expression of the joyous sentiments she felt after having experienced something as inexplicably pleasurable as an orgasm. In the last stanza Dickinson refers to the power and control that she has over man’s quest for sexual climax. The sexual poems that Dickinson wrote to or about women were more discreet than what she exhibited in poem # 616. In poem # 211 Dickinson uses nature as a metaphor
When people think of Emily Dickinson, they think of a white dressed, ghostly woman hidden in the corridors of home, writing poem after poem. They do not think of the actual person Emily was. Emily Dickinson grew up in a rich, social, scholarly environment. She could have chosen many paths that would have led her to a completely different life, but because of circumstances, the social, high energy girl with a sense of humor became isolated by her own choice. Though Emily Dickinson’s depression is romanticized, sickness, social life, and death led her to seclusion and deep poems.
Emily Dickinson was one of the best American poets, but she is very famous for being a secluded writer. Emily Dickinson was born on December 10, 1846 in Amherst, Massachusetts and she died on May 15, 1886 at the age of 55 in Amherst, Massachusetts. Her isolation from the outside world still confuses literary critics and readers of her poetry and letters. There are many theories developed over time about her seclusion. Some people believe her secluded way of life was her own choice but she was very close to her family. Emily Dickinson lived in a happy home and went to a school during her life. Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1830 and lived there all her life most of her life. An introduction into Emily Dickinson’s poetry themes, and discussion about the isolation in her life, and discussion about the isolation in her poetry will be examined in the paper.
Emily Dickinson was an exceptional writer through the mid-late 1800’s. She never published any of her writings and it wasn’t until after her death that they were even discovered. The complexity of understanding her poems is made prevalent because of the fact that she, the author, cannot expound on what her writing meant. This causes others to have to speculate and decide for themselves the meaning of any of her poems. There are several ways that people can interpret Emily Dickinson’s poems; readers often give their opinion on which of her poems present human understanding as something boundless and unlimited or something small and limited, and people always speculate Dickinson’s view of the individual self.
Sleep deprivation, vexation, feeling exasperated and a bit depressed; unfortunately, I feel every one of those today. Plans for Wednesday have changed for several reasons, each one respectively, due to either mum, Alexis, and myself; mine being a large monetary setback at USC this morning. In feelings and changes, I will work off the hours as I can this week, and try to have it finished by April. I would hate for a situation to arise, or yet another situation to arise rather, to come up, and still be jerking-off with this. With the blue-shifted deadline for those hours becoming bluer still, may be best to bite, swallow, and shit the bitter bullet and be done with it. Oh dear, proper British lady has crashed.
Emily Dickinson, recognized as one of the greatest American poets of the nineteenth century, was born December 10, 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts (Benfey, 1). Dickinson’s greatness and accomplishments were not always recognized. In her time, women were not recognized as serious writers and her talents were often ignored. Only seven of her 1800 poems were ever published. Dickinson’s life was relatively simple, but behind the scenes she worked as a creative and talented poet. Her work was influenced by poets of the seventeenth century in England, and by her puritan upbringing. Dickinson was an obsessively private writer. Dickinson withdrew herself from the social contract around the age of thirty and devoted herself, in secret, to writing.
The fourth stanza begins with the line “You will want to know that she was standing by an open window in an upstairs bedroom” (13-15) This seems to be more of Collin’s anal retentiveness trying to prove that he is in control. Se is “motionless, a little wide-eyed” (16), which demonstrates her innocence and how helpless she seems to be in this whole situation. By her lack of participation and his over zealous control, one would think that it is more of a rape than a sexual encounter. The phrase “looking out at the orchard below” (17) seems to be a phallic symbol. Dickinson is
Emily Dickinson was one of the best American poets, but she is very famous for being a secluded writer. Emily Dickinson was born on December 10, 1846 in Amherst, Massachusetts and she died on May 15, 1886 at the age of 55 in Amherst, Massachusetts. Her isolation from the outside world still confuses literary critics and readers of her poetry and letters. There are many theories developed over time about her seclusion. Some people believe her secluded way of life was her own choice but she was very close to her family. Emily Dickinson lived in a happy home and went to a school during her life. Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1830 and lived there all her life most of her life. An introduction into Emily Dickinson’s poetry themes, and discussion about the isolation in her life, and discussion about the isolation in her poetry will be examined in the paper.
Dickinson had a series of passionate, intense emotional (and perhaps romantic) connections with men and women that helped her to form ideas about love and loss. Despite this, she lived alone, becoming even more reclusive when her parents died. However, her isolation from the outside world also gave her much time to form her own conclusions about humanity, and create poems that resonated with people of all backgrounds and time periods. Emily Dickinson lived during the Romantic-Transcendentalist period of American literature and explored intertwining themes of love, death, nature and immortality; however, her poems “Because I Could Not Stop For Death”, “I
Michael Salvucci Mrs. Comeau English 10 Honors Death, Pain, and the Pursuit of Peace Although Emily Dickinson’s poetry is profoundly insightful, her poems have a very confinedpan of subjects and themes. Most likely due to her early life and social reclusion, Dickinson’s poetry is limited to three major subjects: death, pain, and on a somewhat lighter note, nature. Dickinson’s poetry is greatly influenced by her early life as she led an extremely secluded and pessimisticlife. In her early adult years the poet spent one year studying at female seminary, from 1847 to 1848. Dickinson’s blunt pessimistic attitude is shown in a letter, written to a friend, as she says “I am not happy…Christ is calling everyone here, all my companions have
The poem is written in Dickinson’s usual obscure style, allowing different interpretations and creating various themes. Death and suffering were obvious themes that Dickinson introduced through the text. The theme of death is evident through Dickinson’s description of the nerves: “The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs–” (After 2). Dickinson compares nerves to tombs, and tombs are associated with graves or death. Dickinson provide more textual evidence that presents the idea of death is the ending of the poem: “First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –” (After 13).
Dickinson was very isolated however her strong expression of her own passion and opinions and feelings never cease to appear in her poems. Dickson fills her poems with symbolism due to the fact that her poetry is not meant for all to interpret, but instead for her personal purposes and gains. Dickinson’s poems, many times, focus on the themes of life. For example, in I died for Beauty- but was scarce Dickinson focuses on how life moves on and events and different elements of life slowly pass with time (such as beauty and truth), but life moves on. Dickinson focuses on topics that are ordinary events but unlike Whitman, Dickinson bring the darker side to these ordinary events with a solemnness, but passion as well.
Seventy-five years after the 1890s publication of the premier volumes of Emily Dickinson's poetry, critics still squabble about the poet's possibly lesbian relationship with her sister-in-law, Susan Huntington Gilbert Dickinson. Indeed, the specifics of Dickinson's relationship to Susan are ambiguous at best. All of the critical attention that her mysterious sexuality
Born into an upper-class family in Amherst, Massachusetts, Emily Dickinson was a structured woman and writer. Coming from a prominent family with two siblings, it was unusual that Dickenson didn't want for much in life, not even seeking fame as a poet. Dickinson was known for being private and was even accused of being a recluse. During her lifetime, Dickinson preferred being indoors and was notorious for her isolation from the world. Although she was shy in nature, Dickinson spoke out in her poems and was never afraid to share her thoughts about life and religion. However, it was not until after her
Emily Dickinson a modern romantic writer, whose poems considered imaginative and natural, but also dark as she uses death as the main theme many times in her writings. She made the death look natural and painless since she wanted the reader to look for what after death and not be stuck in that single moment. In her poems imagination play a big role as it sets the ground for everything to unfold in a magical way. The speakers in Dickinson’s poetry, are sharp-sighted observers who see the inescapable limitations of their societies as well as their imagined and imaginable escapes. To make the abstract tangible, to define meaning without confining it, to inhabit a house that never became a prison, Dickinson created in her writing a distinctively elliptical language for expressing what was possible but not yet realized. She turned increasingly to this style that came to define her writing. The poems are rich in aphorism and dense
The controversy surrounding Emily Dickinson is her odd lifestyle and her tendencies to be somewhat of a recluse. She is sometimes considered abnormal because she does things differently from most others. She spends much of her life dressed in white and withdrawn from much of society. Of course, her peers take this negatively, but what they do not understand is that her being so private is more of a meditation to her, instead of a hiding. She just wants to escape the pressures she feels are normally required of women. She does not want to be a servant to sick and elderly. She feels she has more potential for her mind to grow, and those obligations would just be hindrances to her writing (McQuade 1255). Her childhood and her staying out of society as an adult, along with many other aspects known and not known, influence her poems and the style in which she goes about writing the works. Her techniques of writing are completely different from any other writer, whether prose or poetry. Dickinson composes her phrases by marking them off with a dash, placing a space before and after. This small maneuver places more emphasis on her “impress of the mind in its analysis of experience” (McQuade 1256). Her slant thymes and unique form of expression produces more of an oddness to the audience.