Emily Dickinson

What was Emily Dickinson’s writing style and how was it different?

Emily Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts, and she died there on May 15, 1886. Most of the family belonged to the Congregational Church, though the poet herself never became a member. Dickinson had a strong secondary education and a year of college at South Hadley Female Seminary. She was far more educated than most other girls during her time. The poet was born in, and died in, a house called the Homestead (http://www.uta.edu/english/tim/poetry/ed/bio.html).

Homestead in 1800's

Dickinson Museum


Today Emily Dickinson is considered one of America’s most original poet’s. Only seven poems were published in her lifetime, but now eighteen hundred have now been published. Little known in her own lifetime, she was first publicized in almost mythic terms as a reclusive, eccentric, death-obsessed spinster who wrote in fits as the spirit moved her (Baym). Dickinson’s fame as a poet rests on the fact that she introduced new styles that were well ahead of her times; she used the elements of slant rhyme and assonance along with simple language to create a melodious effect in her poetry. Dickinson’s poetry is considered to encompass emotions and issues that transcend the barriers of time and are as relevant today as they were in her age. The manner in which she employed punctuations, capitalization and metaphors are aspects of her style that has inspired many poets (http://classicliterature.net/emily-dickinson/).  Her complex lyrics have a wide range of subjects: pain and joy, the relationship of self to nature, the intensely spiritual, and the intensely ordinary. Also her poems about death confront its grim reality with honesty, humor and curiosity.

Emily Dickinson’s life experiences had an intense impact on her writing style. Dickinson’s love poems have convinced biographers that she fell in love a number of times. Not only did love play a big part of her life, but also death. Within ten years Dickinson lost her father, mother, nephew, and one of her close friends. Her seclusion from the world and her poems about death could have been a response to her grief of these losses (Baym).

Baym, Nina, Wayne Franklin, and Robert S. Levine. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. New York [u.a.: Norton, 2012. Print.

This is one of my favorite Emily Dickinson poems :)