Unique Elements Within Dickinson 's Poetry

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 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.

Emily Dickinson was an American poetess during the 19th century, born in Amherst, Massachusetts, December 10, 1830. Dickinson died at the age of 56, on May 15, 1886. Although her family was prominent, she was most unsociable, being intensely solitary. People considered her as an eccentric, as she showed disinclination towards guests, which in some cases, even caused them to leave, leaving most of her acquaintanceships founded upon by correlation. Dickinson was known for her adherence for wearing white clothing, and her introverted personality. She remained unwedded for life, and rarely ever left her front gate of her homestead. Emily Dickinson started writing poetry in her youthful years, and was encouraged by Benjamin Franklin Newton to continue her writings. During her teenage years, she had uncovered poetic works through verses of Ralph Waldo Emerson and William Wordsworth, she also deeply admired by John Keats and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Her poetry was deeply affected by the Book of Revelation, and her Puritan background, that influenced her to explore concepts like love and death, and write in styles that made her be noticeable to the crowd. Critics believe that her biggest influence in poetry was Reverend Charles Wadsworth, whom she had met on her trip to Philadelphia, and fell in love with him. It is believed that her flow of verses came when Wadsworth left, which gave rise to heartsick poems, as she had considered him as her “closest

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.

“I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled poets to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean” (Socrates). What does it mean to be this type of poet? How can someone accomplish such success in poetry, the answer is just two words Emily Dickinson. Emily Dickinson spent a large portion of her life in isolation, not because she was forced to or because she was ill, Dickinson simply wanted to be alone and because of her isolation she became one of the greatest female poets of all time. Emily Dickinson set the bar high for other female poets and created some of the most renowned poems in the world. The two poems “The Soul Selects Her Own Society” and “Tell all the Truth but Tell it Slant” are drastically different poems that tell two different stories, but there are some aspects that cause them to be similar: Imagery, tone, and the statement that the two poems make.

The Belle of Amherst, The Woman in White, or The Most Paradoxical of Poets…who can say which pseudonym is most becoming of the late great Emily Dickinson. By virtue of the multitudinous biographical literary works, moreover the wondrous intimacy of Dickinson’s poetry, one could surmise that as readers we comprehend her entirely: yet the most prevalent experience borne from reading Emily’s work, especially if her poems are read successively, is that we come away feeling as though we know nothing at all. Like no author before her and very few after her, Emily Dickinson divulges her hearts hidden secrets while recording what is inexorably one of the most conscientious explorations of the human consciousness ever attempted. Dickinson is known posthumously for her unusual use of form and syntax, but it was her pervasive themes of immortality, death, and madness in her poems that would canonize her as an indelible American character.

Emily Dickinson is the creator of some of the most famous works in American poetry. Throughout the 1800s, the author dedicated her life to poetry. She used metaphors in an advanced way and displayed power through her unique use of diction. Emily’s immense power with words derived from her determination. Dickinson’s determination to achieve individuality and power is exemplified through her complex poetry and derived from the events that occurred in her life.

Emily Dickinson, like many writers, wrote about her own interests. Although few of her works were published while alive, the topics, which she did write about, were relevant to her life – topics that are still relevant today. The three poems that I chose share commonalities, but are executed in unique ways. In her writing she has a tendency to leave room for the reader to express their own opinion on the piece, this allowing room for personal reflection and connection. For readers, this can mean that the writing becomes their “own” – they can identify with it. The three poems chosen all speak about topics that are rich with context and meaning – faith, mental illness, and personal vision. These characteristics are only noticed if one has the

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 is one of America’s greatest poets, her work was original and unique, and the speakers in her poem would often express what limitations they saw in their society and how they wish they could escape it. Although Dickinson became a famous poet, she didn’t want her work published, during her lifetime other people would have some of her poems published. The poems that were published were considered to be eccentric and were altered significantly by publishers. Dickinson often wrote about the idea of being famous and how much she would dread it if she ever did become famous because she felt that it wouldn’t allow her to stay true to herself. Upon her death thousands of poems were discovered by her family and were eventually published, these poems are what cemented her legacy as one of the greatest poets to ever live.

Emily Dickinson is an American poet born in Amherst Massachusetts December tenth, 1830. As a child Dickinson’s love for books was massive yet she did not start writing poetry until she was eighteen. However, she was not known of until after her death. Nonetheless, some people other than her family did now about Dickinson’s remarkable poems. Furthermore, most tried encouraging her to publish her poems yet others did the contrary. Emily Dickinson’s life is what caused her to write such great poetry.

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

Emily Dickinson was one of the many famous American poets whose work was published in the 19th century. Her writing style was seen as unconventional due to her use of “dashes and syntactical fragments”(81), which was later edited out by her original publishers. These fragmented statements and dashes were added to give emphasis to certain lines and subjects to get her point across. Even though Emily Dickinson was thought to be a recluse, she wrote descriptive, moving poems on death, religion, and love. Her poems continue to create gripping discussions among scholars on the meaning behind her poems.

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.