Emily Dickinson
1830 - 1886
Early Life
• She was born to religious,
well-to-do family and had a normal
childhood in Amherst, Massachusetts.
• Everyone expected her to marry and raise a
family like most women of her class.
• This all suddenly changed when she was 24.
She became a poet and recluse.
• “Dickinson used precise language and unique
poetic forms to simultaneously reveal and
conceal her private thoughts and feelings”
(Elements of Literature 345).
• What happened to turn a young girl into an
unrecognized poet who never left her house?
What would cause a young
woman of 24 suddenly to
isolate herself
within her yard and house
and ignore the world outside?
Speculations about Why
• Went to DC with her father, a congressman,
because she had fallen in love with a
married lawyer, who soon died of TB.
• There fell in love with another married man,
a minister. He moved to San Francisco in
1862. About this time she wrote, “I sing as
the boy does by the burying ground,
because I am afraid.”
Return to Amherst
• Within a few years, she had retreated from
all social life in Amherst. Always wearing
white, like the bride she would never be,
she remained in her parents’ house and
restricted herself to household work and
writing poetry, which she would sometimes
send to people as gifts for valentines or
birthdays, along with a pie or cookies.
 Only a few of her poems were
published in her lifetime. She sent four
of them to a critic, Mr. Higginson,
asking for his help. When he sent
suggestions for changing her poems,
she replied in a letter, “Thank you for
the surgery; it was not so painful as I
supposed. I bring you others, as you
ask” (Higginson).
• After her death, friends and relatives found
bundles of her poems, which they edited
and “corrected” and had published in
installments.
• In 1955, Thomas H. Johnson finally
published a collection of her poems that had
not been “corrected.” These are the
versions we read today.
Here are two versions of one stanza of one of her poems. The
first is unedited; the second has been “corrected.”
We passed the School, where Children strove
At recess—in the Ring—
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain—
We passed the Setting Sun—
We passed the school where children played
Their lessons scarcely done;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.
See the differences? How does the poem change?
Why was she a poet?
 Many people have commented that there are
no great woman artists. Would Emily
Dickinson have become such a renowned poet
if she had married and had children?
 What evidence is there in her poetry that she
had a rich emotional life in spite of the fact that
she rarely left home?
What sort of poet was she?
• Dickinson is known for using poetry as
private observation.
• Her poems are carefully crafted in rhyme
and meter.
• What autobiographical references do
you find in the following poems?
Heart! We will forget him!
You and I—tonight!
You may forget the warmth he gave—
I will forget the light!
When you have done, pray tell me
That I many straight begin!
Haste! Lest while you’re lagging
I remember him!
This shows a conflict between her mind and her heart.
What controls you, your mind or your heart?
Is she referring to unrequited love (love that is not returned)
or love that is impossible because of the circumstances?
The Soul selects her own Society—
Then—shuts the Door—
To her divine Majority*—
Present no more—
Unmoved—she notes the Chariots—pausing—
At her low Gate—
Unmoved—an Emperor be kneeling
Upon her Mat—
(continued on next slide)
*Majority can mean reaching 21 or the greater part
of something.
I’ve known her—from an ample nation—
Choose One—
Then—close the Valves of her attention—
Like Stone—
Do we make choices with our minds (thoughts) or
our souls (feelings)?
Does this describe her in any way?
How would you punctuate this poem?
What examples does this poem contain of slant
rhyme?
Apparently with no surprise
To any happy Flower
The Frost beheads it at its play—
In accidental power—
The blonde Assassin passes on—
The Sun proceeds unmoved
To measure off another Day
For an Approving God.
What is unusual about her capitalization?
Why does she do it?
What is disturbing about this poem?
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind—
What is she saying? Is she right?
How could this lesson apply to her own life as well as to her
poetry?
Another Poet Writes about Dickinson:
We think of her hidden in a white dress
among the folded linens and sachets
of well-kept cupboards, or just out of sight
sending jellies and notes with no address
to all the wondering Amherst neighbors.
Eccentric as New England weather
the stiff wind of her mind, stinging or gentle,
blew two half-imagined lovers off.
Yet legend won’t explain the sheer sanity
of vision, the serious mischief
of language, the economy of pain.
--Linda Pastan (Elements of Literature 371)
Sources of Images
Photograph of Emily Dickinson [On-line image]
available
http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/images/authors/e
mily.jpg.
Painting of Young Emily [On-line image] available
http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~emilypg/1830.html.