Emily Dickinson
The Belle of Amherst
Biography
Born December 10, 1830 the second of three children to a
Calvinist family in Amherst, MA.
Father was a lawyer and one of the wealthiest and most
respected citizens in the town, as well as a conservative
leader of the church
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.
It was later, during her mid-twenties that Emily began to
grow reclusive.
Biography
She spent sociable evenings with guests such
as Samuel Bowles, editor of the Springfield
Daily Republican
She also enjoyed dancing, buggy rides, parlor
games, and other forms of entertainment until she
began to seclude herself
Around 1860, she stopped visiting with other people
and became a recluse
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.
Biography
By the 1860s, she lived in almost total
physical isolation from the outside world, but
actively maintained many correspondences and
read widely.
She wrote 1775 poems, but only seven of them
published in her life time.
Before her death, she asked her sister to burn
all her poems. However, her sister published
them instead.
Dickinson’s Poetry
Dickinson was able to create a very personal
and pure kind of 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 dashes
Influenced by nature and spiritual themes
Dickinson’s Poetry
Dickinson’s terse, frequently imaginistic style is even more
modern and innovative than Whitman’s
Her poetry exhibits great intelligence and often evokes the
agonizing paradox of the limits of the human consciousness
trapped in time.
The subjects of Dickinson’s poetry are the traditional ones
of love, nature, religion, and immortality
Her poetry is also notable for its technical irregularities
Other characteristics of her style include sporadic
capitalization of nouns; convoluted and ungrammatical
phrasing; off-rhymes; broken meters; bold, unconventional,
and often startling metaphors; and aphoristic wit.
Dickinson’s Publishing Career
Dickinson began a correspondence with Thomas
Wentworth Higginson, a local intellectual, journalist,
and anti-slavery activist
She asked Higginson for advice with her poetry
Higginson responded with much praise and gentle
criticism, but he advised her against publishing her
poetry because of its raw form and subject matter
Higginson became Dickinson’s intellectual mentor.
Even though he admitted feeling out of her league in
poetical talent, he ultimately did not recognize the worth
of her poetry
At the time of her death, only seven of her poems had
been published.
Posthumous Publication
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.
What’s the Difference?
EDITED VERSION
BECAUSE I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.
We passed the school where children played,
Their lessons scarcely done;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.
ORIGINAL VERSION
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.
We passed the school, where children strove
At recess, in the ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.
An excerpt of poem 712, or “Because I could not stop for Death, called
“The Chariot” by Higginson and Todd. On the left is the edited version; on the right,
the original. Note the major changes in lines 9 and 10.
Dickinson’s Legacy
Dickinson died May 15, 1886 of nephritis
(kidney disease).
Dickinson is considered influential to poets
such as Adrienne Rich, Richard Wilbur,
Archibald MacLeish, and William Stafford.
Along with Walt Whitman, Dickinson is
one of the two giants of American poetry of
the 19th century.
The Dickinson Homestead in Amherst,
Massachusetts
The Dickinson Homestead in Amherst, Massachusetts
(garden)
The Dickinson Homestead in Amherst, Massachusetts
(bedroom)
The Dickinson Homestead in
Amherst, Massachusetts
(Dress)
If you were coming in the Fall
If you were coming in the Fall,
I ’d brush the Summer by
With half a smile, and half a spurn,
As Housewives do a Fly.
If certain, when this life was out–
That yours and mine, should be
I ’d toss it yonder, like a Rind,
15
And take Eternity–
If I could see you in a year,
5
I ’d wind the months in balls–
And put them each in separate Drawers,
For fear the numbers fuse–
But, now, uncertain of the length
Of this, that is between,
It goads me, like the Goblin Bee—
That will not state—its sting.
20
If only Centuries delayed,
I ’d count them on my Hand,
10
Subtracting ,till my fingers dropped
Into Van Diemen’s Land.
My life closed twice before its close
My life closed twice before its close—
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me
So huge, so hopeless to conceive
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.
The Soul selects her own Society
The Soul selects her own Society—
Then—shuts the Door—
To her divine majority—
Present no more—
Unmoved—she notes the Chariot’s—pausing—
At her low Gate—
Unmoved—an Emperor be kneeling
Upon her Mat—
I ’ve known her—from an ample nation—
Choose one—
Then—close the Valves of her attention—
Like Stone—
5
10
Much Madness is divinest Sense
Much Madness is divinest Sense—
To a discerning
perceptive Eye—
complete
Much Sense—the
starkest Madness—
‘Tis the Majority
succeed
In this, as All, prevail—
Agree
Assent—and
you are sane—
Demur—you're straightway dangerous—
Object
And handled with a Chain—
Success is counted sweetest
Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.
Not one of all the purple Host
Who took the flag today
Can tell the definition
So clear of Victory
As he defeated—dying—
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear!
Because I could not stop for Death
Or rather—He passed Us—
The Dews drew quivering and chill—
For only Gossamer, my Gown—
My Tippet—only Tulle—
Because I could not stop for Death—
He kindly stopped for me—
The Carriage held but just Ourselves—
And Immortality.
We slowly drove—he knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For his Civility—
5 We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground—
The Roof was scarcely visible—
15
The Cornice—in the Ground—
We passed the School, where Children
strove
At Recess—in the Ring—
10
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain—
We passed the Setting Sun—
Since then— ’tis Centuries—and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses’ Heads
Were toward Eternity—
20
This is my letter to the World
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
Hope is the thing with feathers
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.