Essay about Emily Dickinson and Interpretations of Her Poetry

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, 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.

Emily Dickinson, born in 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts, is regarded as one of America’s best poets. After a poor experience at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, where she was regarded as a “no hope,” her writing career took off in full swing. Although her family was more conservative, regular churchgoers, and socially prominent town figures, Dickinson preferred a socially reserved lifestyle that renounced the traditional values of her day (Baym, 1189-93). The iconoclastic spirit pervasive in Emily Dickinson's poetry reflects her conflict with the traditions of New England society.

Like many famed writers such as Confucius or Voltaire; Dickinson’s writings weren’t popularized for another century, when she and Walt Whitman grew to be known as the best 19th Century poets. The writer was born in December of 1830 to a devoutly Christian family in Amherst, Massachusetts. It was around the time of her birth that the transcendentalist movement exploded, and perhaps this is why she became so reclusive. It is also speculated that Dickinson suffered a romantic disappointment around this time, which is believed to also be why she retreated to such a secluded lifestyle, where she was left alone to her thoughts and writings. She withdrew from society in her teens and her only contact with others was through letters. Similarly to Lao Tzu and Henry David Thoreau, Dickinson became fascinated with nature. It was for a long duration of time that Emily’s work was entirely unrecognized and unknown.

Death is not a just a theme used throughout her poems but it was Emily Dickinson’s lifelong obsession. Death has been mentioned frequently in her poems together with frustration, suffering, pain, sorrow, grief and loneliness Death is portrayed by her from every possible aspect – as the courtly lover, the dreadful assassin, the physical corruptor, a free agent in nature and wonderful company on a carriage ride. She was obsessed with the problem of death and life after death. This obsession with death and spirituality made critics view Dickinson as a mysterious and dark poet. In the text “Blind Seeing: Death writing from Dickinson to

Emily Dickinson was born on December 10th, 1830 to Edward and Emily Dickinson in Amherst, Massachusetts. In the year 1833, her little sister Lavinia was born into the family. During February of 1852, A Valentine was published in the Springfield Republican. That was one of the first poems that she had written. Emily Dickinson was an amazing poet that wrote

​One of the themes that can be noted from the novels is the theme of death. The short story starts with the death of Emily and her funeral scene is captured. It’s worth noting too that Emily is depicted as a woman from the aristocratic class and following her father’s death, she still continues to behave in a boastful manner. The short story is divided into five different sections with each and every section pointing at different character traits and themes the author used. People turned up in large numbers to attend Emily’s burial ceremony and most women had an intention of seeing her house that she did not want anybody

Emily Dickinson is a passionate poet and a major figure in American Literature. Her poems tell a great deal about her lifestyle. By her early twenties, she seldom leaves her home and begins to live a life of seclusion. Dickinson’s unique style in writing poetry makes her one of America’s greatest poets. She writes about the subject of death in many of her poems. She is drawn to the mystery of the afterlife. Dickinson expresses her concern on immortality and whether the soul survives death in the poems “Because I could not stop for death-,” “Just lost, when I was saved!,” and “I heard, as if I had no Ear.”

Her family was well known in Massachusetts since her father was a lawyer and her grandfather was one of the college’s founders. However, Emily was quite the opposite since she was reclusive and withdrew from almost all social life in Amherst. She was not known during her time, but she wrote uplifting verses that touch the heart that are now famous (Michael Mayer, 754). In the poem “Because I could not stop for Death” the speaker dies many years ago, which is reflecting back to her life and the day she died. Thus the theme is that although death is a scary thing, its a soothing process to enter the afterlife. The literary elements that contribute to the theme are personification, imagery, and extended metaphor.

The subject of death, including her own was a very prevalent theme in Emily Dickinson’s poems and letters. Some may find her preoccupation with death morbid, but this was not unusual for her time period. The mindset during Ms. Dickinson’s time was that of being prepared to die, in the 19th century people died of illness and accidents at an alarming rate, not to mention the Civil War had a high number of casualties, she also lived 15 years of her youth next to a cemetery. Dickinson’s view on death was never one of something to be feared she almost romanized death, in her poem “Because I Could not Stop for Death”, she actually personifies death while narrating from beyond the grave. In the first stanza she states “I could not stop for

Although she lived a seemingly secluded life, Emily Dickinson's many encounters with death influenced many of her poems and letters. Perhaps one of the most ground breaking and inventive poets in American history, Dickinson has become as well known for her bizarre and eccentric life as for her incredible poems and letters. Numbering over 1,700, her poems highlight the many moments in a 19th century New England woman's life, including the

However, in contrast to Emily’s poem, the speaker undervalues death’s supremacy as its power is actually not in its own control. It is a contradictory to Emily’s poem. In line 9 "Thou’art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men" indicates death as a slave as it does what has been ordered from the superior ones. Death takes human’s life not because he is willing to do so but because he is forced to do so. In line 10-11, “And dost with poison, war and sickness… can make us sleep as well” the speaker associates death with poison, war and sickness as death is not the only factor of human’s deceases which then the speaker posts rhetorical question for death to stop being proud. Also, the usage of rhetorical questions like in line 2 “For thou art not so” makes death fragile. Further, the last line in this poem “And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die” points out that at the end, the only one who dies is death itself which will be discussed in the element of Christian theology in this essay. The ending also eventually argues that death is weak and vulnerable, not in control and that is the reason why human should not fear death. All the arguments made by the speaker in this poem creates death less powerful and less control of itself which illustrates a condescending tone to elucidate death’s incapability to kill.

Emily Dickinson once said, “Dying is a wild night and a new road.” Some people welcome death with open arms while others cower in fear when confronted in the arms of death. Through the use of ambiguity, metaphors, personification and paradoxes Emily Dickinson still gives readers a sense of vagueness on how she feels about dying. Emily Dickinson inventively expresses the nature of death in the poems, “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain (280)”, “I Heard a fly Buzz—When I Died—(465)“ and “Because I could not stop for Death—(712)”.

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born December 10, 1830, into an influential family in Amherst, Massachusetts. Her father helped found Amherst College, where Emily later attended between 1840 and 1846. She never married and died in the house where she was born on May 15, 1886.

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