Emily Dickinson 1830-1886
Born in Amherst,
Massachusetts, in 1830
Father was an attorney, a
state rep. and senator.
Attended Mount Holyoke
Female Seminary, a
Calvinist school.
Failed to “convert” or
conform to religious
expectations of the school.
This liberated her to think
on her own.
American Literature (I) Autumn
2008
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
She was well read and was especially interested in
British female contemporary writers: the Brontes,
George Eliot, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
As an adult, she became increasingly isolated, rarely
leaving her home.
On the last ten years of her life, she remained within
her house and garden.
Dressed only in white and would not allow neighbors
or strangers to see her.
Between 1874 and 1885, she lost her father, her
mother, her beloved nephew, and her close
childhood friend.
American Literature (I) Autumn
2008
Not publicly recognized during her lifetime.
Dickinson published seven poems during her
lifetime. After her death in 1886, her sister
discovered over 1,000 poems in her bureau.
A collection was published in 1890.
Some poems were edited to make them
more conventional. (Gasp!)
Considered one of the greatest poets in
American literature.
Dickinson and Whitman exerted the most
influence on poetry to come after them.
American Literature (I) Autumn
2008
Her style
Distinctive voice, looks inward
Transformed traditional forms and
meter of poetry to irregular meter.
Enjambment
Slant rhyme
Dash
Unconventional capitalization
Startling imagery
American Literature (I) Autumn
2008
Topics of her poetry
Personal pain and joy
The relationship between self and
nature
The intensely spiritual
The intensely ordinary
Confronting death
Immortality: “the flood subject”
Religion: reverence, rebellion,
uncertainty
American Literature (I) Autumn
Love
2008
“Hope is the thing with feathers”
254
"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.
Because I could not stop for Death –
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 –
Or rather – He passed us –
The Dews drew quivering and chill –
For only Gossamer, my Gown –
My Tippet – only Tulle –
We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground –
The Roof was scarcely visible –
The Cornice – in the Ground –
Since then – 'tis Centuries – and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses' Heads
Were toward Eternity –
I heard a Fly buzz (465)
I heard a Fly buzz (465)
I heard a Fly buzz – when I died –
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air –
Between the Heaves of Storm –
The Eyes around – had wrung them dry –
And Breaths were gathering firm
For that last Onset – when the King
Be witnessed – in the Room –
I willed my Keepsakes – Signed away
What portions of me be
Assignable – and then it was
There interposed a Fly –
With Blue – uncertain stumbling Buzz –
Between the light – and me –
And then the Windows failed – and then
I could not see to see –
Emily Dickinson
Born in 1830 in rural Amherst, Massachusetts, Emily
Dickinson spent her entire life in the household of her
parents. Between 1858 and 1862, it was later discovered,
she wrote like a person possessed, often producing a
poem a day. It was also during this period that her life was
transformed into the myth of Amherst. Withdrawing more
and more, keeping to her room, sometimes even refusing
to see visitors who called, she began to dress only in
white—a habit that added to her reputation as an
eccentric.
In their determination to read Dickinson’s life in terms of a
traditional romantic plot, biographers have missed the
unique pattern of her life—her struggle to create a female
life not yet imagined by the culture in which she lived.
American Literature (I) Autumn
2008
Emily Dickinson
Dickinson was not the innocent, lovelorn and emotionally
fragile girl sentimentalized by the Dickinson myth and
popularized by William Luce’s 1976 play, the Belle of
Amherst. Her decision to shut the door on Amherst
society in the 1850’s transformed her house into a kind of
magical realm in which she was free to engage her poetic
genius. Her seclusion was not the result of a failed love
affair, but rather a part of a more general pattern of
renunciation through which she, in her quest for self
sovereignty, carried on an argument with the puritan
fathers, attacking with wit and irony their cheerless
Calvinist doctrine, their stern patriarchal God, and their
rigid notions of “true womanhood”.
American Literature (I) Autumn
2008
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
The chief tension in her work comes from her
inability to accept the orthodox religious faith of her
day and her longing for its spiritual comfort.
Immortality she called “the flood subject,” and she
alternated confident statements of belief with lyrics of
despairing uncertainty that were both reverent and
rebellious.
Her verse, noted for its aphoristic style, its wit, its
delicate metrical variation and irregular rhymes, its
directness of statement, and its bold and startling
imagery, has won enormous acclaim and had a
great influence on 20th-century poetry.
American Literature (I) Autumn
2008
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
“If I read a book [and] it makes my
whole body so cold no fire ever can
warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel
physically as if the top of my head were
taken off, I know that is poetry.”
-Emily Dickinson
American Literature (I) Autumn
2008
Before the Ice Is in the Pools *
Before the ice is in the pools,
Before the skaters go,
Or any cheek at nightfall
Is tarnished by the snow,
What we touch the hems of
On a summer’s day;
What is only walking
Just a bridge away;
Before the fields have finished,
Before the Christmas tree,
Wonder upon wonder
Will arrive to me!
That which sings so, speaks so,
When there’s no one here, —
Will the frock I wept in
Answer me to wear?
American Literature (I) Autumn
2008
Retrospect *
‘Twas just this time last year I died.
I know I heard the corn,
When I was carried by the farms, —
It had the tassels on.
I thought how yellow it would look
When Richard went to mill;
And then I wanted to get out,
But something held my will.
I thought just how red apples wedged
The stubble’s joints between;
And carts went stooping round the
fields
To take the pumpkins in.
I wondered which would miss me least,
And when Thanksgiving came,
If father’d multiply the plates
To make an even sum.
And if my stocking hung too high,
Would it blur the Christmas glee,
That not a Santa Claus could reach
The altitude of me?
But this sort grieved myself, and so
I thought how it would be
When just this time, some perfect year,
Themselves should come to me.
American Literature (I) Autumn
2008
The Mystery of Pain *
Pain has an element of blank;
It cannot recollect
When it began, or if there were
A day when it was not.
It has no future but itself,
Its infinite realms contain
Its past, enlightened to perceive
New periods of pain.
American Literature (I) Autumn
2008
As Imperceptibly As Grief *
As imperceptibly as grief
The summer lapsed away, —
Too imperceptible, at last,
To seem like perfidy.
A quietness distilled,
As twilight long begun,
Or Nature, spending with
herself
Sequestered afternoon.
The dusk drew earlier in,
The morning foreign shone, —
A courteous, yet harrowing
grace,
As guest who would be gone.
And thus, without a wing,
Or service of a keel,
Our summer made her light
escape
Into the beautiful.
American Literature (I) Autumn
2008
The Bustle in a House *
The bustle in a house
The morning after death
Is solemnest of industries
Enacted upon earth, —
The sweeping up the heart,
And putting love away
We shall not want to use again
Until eternity.
American Literature (I) Autumn
2008
Forbidden Fruit *
Forbidden fruit a flavor has
That lawful orchards mocks;
How luscious lies the pea within
The pod that Duty locks!
American Literature (I) Autumn
2008
I Felt a Funeral in My Brain *
I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading--treading--till it
seemed
That Sense was breaking through--
As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange
Race
Wrecked, solitary, here--
And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum-Kept beating--beating--till I thought
My Mind was going numb--
And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down-And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing--then--
And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead,
again,
Then Space--began to toll,
American Literature (I) Autumn
2008
Speech is One Symptom of Affection *
Speech is one symptom of Affection
And Silence one -The perfectest communication
Is heard of none -Exists and its indorsement
Is had within -Behold, said the Apostle,
Yet had not seen!
American Literature (I) Autumn
2008
American Literature (I) Autumn
2008