Emily Dickinson
An American Legacy
By:
Glenn Geib
Meagan Morrow
Savanna Reeves
Biography
• Born Dec. 10, 1830 in Amherst, MA
• Born to a posperous family; father was a
lawyer
• Attended Amherst Academy
Biography, Cont’d…
• Close friends with Thomas W. Higginson,
who eventually published her poems.
• She was frequently ill as a child.
• She began writing as a teenager.
Biography, Cont’d…
• Her poetry became an outlet for her when
she lost close friends and family.
• She became a recluse and shied away
from society.
• Died May 15, 1886
Poetry
• Themes of love, death and nature
• Mysterious verse
– Punctuation was unconventional
– Dashes
– Highly personal
Legacy
• Only seven of her poems were published
during her lifetime (anonymously).
• Of her poems, over 1,700 survived.
• It wasn’t until 1955 that her entire works
were published.
Interpretation of The Works
Did you know?…
-Dickinson had a profound obsession with the book of Revelations in the Bible.
-Dickinson Lived a good part of her life in physical isolation after experiencing immense
homesickness when going away to school at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary for only one year in
South Hadley.
-Dickinson had a fascination with death and had a way of almost glamorizing it.
In this excerpt from her poem entitled “I Dwell In Possibility” she sounds as if death is not
troubling for her in the least “Because I could not stop for Death-He kindly stopped for me”(p1056 Dickinson)
-Dickinson had a way of taking ordinary instances in nature such as a bird eating a worm and
turning them into fascinating works of literature that keeps the reader reading, and then re-reading
to see if anything can be interpreted out of the work. “A Bird Came down the walk- He did not
know I saw- He bit the Angleworm in halves”(1052 Dickinson)
Dickinson & Nature
•
Dickinson had a profound love for nature that was often conveyed
through her poems.
•
Dickinson appreciated the simple, yet important species in nature such as
the birds and the bees, and often wrote about them in her poems. “ A bird
came down the walk- He did not know I saw”(Dickinson) “At Half Past
Three, a single Bird Unto a silent Sky”(Dickinson)
•
Dickinson had a way of personifying nature so as though she was
speaking of a good friend “Light laughs the breeze”(Dickinson) “When it
comes, Landscape listens- Shadows-hold their breath-”(Dickinson)
My Interpretation
•
I think that Emily Dickinson was one of those people who were so smart it
makes them socially awkward along with being extremely shy.
•
I think that Emily Dickinson found most people other than her family
distracting.
•
From reading many of Dickinson's poems, specifically “An Altered Look About
The Hills”, “There's A Certain Slant of Light”, “Tell All The Truth But Tell It Slant”,
and “Summer Shower” the reader quickly catches on that Dickinson is a true
observer of nature.
•
After hearing of Dickinson’s self imposed isolation her poems become more
clear, many of the poems clearly sound like the thoughts of someone
observing nature through their window.
The Era of Emily
Dickinson
1830-1886
Savanna Reeves
Heritage
• English Lineage
• Great Puritan Migration (1620-1640)
• Ancestors left to pursue religious freedom
• Emily a second generation “American.”
The Victorian Era
1837-1901
• Characteristics:
High morals, modesty, social
decorum
• civic conscience/social
responsibility
• Age of Industrialization
• Age of Exploration:
-Settlement of the West
The Victorian Era
pertaining to Literature
• Demographics
-Audience is predominantly middle
class
-(Europe) The New Aristocracy
-(America) Men and Women of the
middle class
• Themes
-rural life, nature, changing roles of
women
Women in Society
• Expectations:
• Virtuous and dutiful disposition
• Domestic duties
• Upper Class
-Educated, well rounded, and cultured.
Works Cited:
•
http://www.erasofelegance.com/history/victorian.html
•
•
•
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http://fineartamerica.com/images-medium/boulder-victorian-jerry-mcelroy.jpg
http://images.oldhouseweb.com/stories/bitmaps/15027/victorian_exterior_photo.jpg
http://ezinearticles.com/?Life-of-Women-in-the-Victorian-Era&id=2359711
Works Cited
Dickinson, Emily. “Poem 712.” The Norton Anthology of World Literature:
1800-1900. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. 2002.1049 1056.
“Timeline of Emily Dickinson.” Famous People Biography Guide. 3 Nov
2009. <http://www.famouspeoplebiographyguide.com/writer/Emilydickinson/Timeline-Of-Emily-Dickinson.html?>