EMILY DICKINSON
Born in 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a prominent New England family and educated at Amherst Academy and Mt. Holyoke Female Seminary, Emily Elizabeth Dickinson lived most of her life in seclusion, devoted to writing. She scarcely left home, nor did she have many visitors. Only ten of her poems were published in her lifetime, submitted without her permission by friends. It was only after her death in 1886 that the scope of her work as a poet came to light-over 1,700 poems were discovered in a dresser drawer by her sister, Lavinia.
Emily Dickinsons poems reflect her loneliness, as well as her love of nature, the influence of the Metaphysical poets of seventeenth century England, and her strong Puritan religious beliefs. Yet, it is her use of language, form, and the deceptive simplicity of her verse that categorize her as an important force in nineteenth century American letters and, along with Walt Whitman, a founder of a distinctly American voice in modern poetry.
Emily Dickinson was an American poet whose writing was heavily influenced by the Metaphysical poets of seventeenth-century England, as well as her reading of the Book of Revelation and her upbringing in a Puritan New England town. In addition to poetry, Dickinson had a passion for baking and botany, and became reclusive later in life. While Dickinson was extremely prolific as a poet and regularly enclosed poems in letters to friends, she was not publicly recognized during her lifetime. The first volume of these works was published in 1890, well after her death in 1886. A full compilation, The Poems of Emily Dickinson, wasnt published until 1955, though previous iterations had been released. Dickinson has since been regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry.
