American Literary Masters:Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson1830-1886
Born 1830 in Amherst, MAGrandfather founded Amherst
College (where she attended)Known as reclusive/private; most of
her work crafted in the form of letters/ correspondence written from homeED ‘The woman in white’
“A solemn thing – it was – I said –A Woman – White – to be –And wear – if God should count me fit –Her blameless mystery –” (Dickinson,
1861)
Emily Dickinson: Biography
Despite her prolific writing, fewer than a dozen poems were published in her lifetime
She died in 1886 (age = 55)Younger sister Lavinia discovered the
collection of nearly eighteen hundred poems
Dickinson's first volume was published four years after her death.
First official anthology 1955 publication of Dickinson's Complete Poems by Thomas H. Johnson
Emily Dickinson: Biography
Dickinson’s literary influences:Emily Dickinson: Influences
William WordsworthRalph Waldo EmersonHenry Wadsworth Longfellow
(Kavanagh)Charlotte Bronte (Jane Eyre)William Shakespeare (Othello;
King Lear; Hamlet)
Dickinson’s Poetry: PeriodsEmily Dickinson: Periods
Dickinson’s poems generally fall into three distinct periods, the works in each period having certain general characters in common:Pre-1861
Conventional and sentimental in nature
1861-1865Vigorous, creative and emotionally
drivenThemes of life and death
Post-1866
Dickinson’s Poetry: StyleEmily Dickinson: Style
Syntax:Extensive use of dashesUnconventional capitalizationIdiosyncratic vocabulary and imageryUse of paradox (self-defeating truth)
Structure:Opted for trimeter and tetrameter;
avoided pentameterEmployed ballad stanza; quatrainsABCB rhyme scheme; slant rhymeResonances fit to melodies of folk songs
and hymns
Dickinson’s Poetry: Major ThemesEmily Dickinson: Themes
Flowers and gardens One of Dickinson’s greatest passions was
botany; saw gardens as “imaginative realms” and their flowers as “emblems for action”
The Master poems Confessional poetry addressed to “Signor”/“Sir”
Morbidity Fascination with illness, dying and death
Gospel poems Preoccupation with the teachings of Jesus Christ
The Undiscovered Continent Dickinson saw the mind and spirit as tangible,
visitable place
Emily Dickinson: Quotes
“My friends are my estate.”“A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day.”“Morning without you is a dwindled dawn.”“Saying nothing…sometimes says the most.”“A wounded deer leaps the highest.”“To love is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.”“People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.”“I dwell in possibility.”
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