Papers

Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts in 1830.
She attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, but severe homesickness caused her to return home after one year.
At age 23, she became very secluded and devoted herself to writing. She rarely left her house and visitors were scarce.
She died in Amherst in 1886.
The first volume of her work was published posthumously in 1890 and the last in 1955.

Her frequent use of dashes, sporadic capitalization of nouns, off-rhymes, broken meter, unconventional metaphors have contributed her reputation as one of the most innovative poets of 19th-century American literature.

Themes:

· loneliness

· speakers of her poems generally live in a state of want

· intimate recollection of inspirational moments which are life-giving and suggest the possibility of future happiness

Works:

    Poems by Emily Dickinson (1890)
    Poems: Second Series (1891)
    Poems: Third Series (1896)
    The Single Hound: Poems of a Lifetime (1914)
    The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1924)
    Further Poems of Emily Dickinson: Withheld from Publication by Her Sister Lavinia (1929)
    Unpublished Poems of Emily Dickinson (1935)
    Bolts of Melody: New Poems of Emily Dickinson (1945)
    The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)
    Final Harvest: Emily Dickinson's Poems (1962)

The Academy of American Poets. Emily Dickinson. 1997-2005. 2 May, 2005. < http://