Emily+Dickinson

Emily Dickinson Born and raised in Amherst, Massachusetts, Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was part of a strict religious family. Her father was a Calvinist and enforced strict rules about religion, but when she was a teenager, Emily and declared herself a Christian. Her education came from various places such as Amherst Academy and South Hadley Seminary for Women, but was never completed because of an illness. Over the years, Dickinson met men like Benjamin Newton, Reverend Charles Wadsworth and Thomas Higginson, whom she considered to be her guides in literature and poetry. After sending some of her work to Higginson, she realized that not everyone will understand her poetry so she withheld from publishing it. Although having written poetry since she was a child, Dickinson only devoted herself to it completely in her 20’s.

Her Poems ·   intense, energetic, imaginative, creative ·  Contain few lines, sentences are broken by interjections and fragments ·  She uses capital letters to emphasize words and uses dashes and exclamation points instead of periods and commas ·  Rapid interplay of thoughts and images ·  She wrote her poems with a dictionary by her side to make sure her words were precise and accurate. Therefore you should read her poems with a dictionary by your side. ·  She wrote poems about her surroundings: her house, garden, yard, village, nature. She wrote about relationships and love, death and dying, and other things. ·  Her inspiration came from herself and her life although there are few specific details about her life. Her poems embody her inner thoughts, reflections, and observations.