Emily Dickinson Add a review

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) was an American poet. Largely unpublished and unknown during her lifetime, her work is now widely regarded as canonical. Her poems have a unique style, piercing intelligence and wit.

Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts to a prominent family. After studying at the Amherst Academy for seven years, she briefly attended the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary before returning home to Amherst.

Although Dickinson was a prolific writer, during her lifetime only 10 of her nearly 1,800 poems were published. Those publications were severely edited to fit poetic conventions of the time. Today her poems are recognized as groundbreaking with their short acerbic lines, lean descriptions, and use of slant or off-rhyme. Her poetry deals with nature and mortality, primarily.

Few in Dickinson's circle were aware of her writing until after her death, when her younger sister Lavinia discovered the poems in her desk. First published as a selection in 1890, edited by Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd, the poems were significantly altered to fit the prevailing fashion. Not until 1955, when Thomas H. Johnson compiled a complete collection of her poetry, "The Poems of Emily Dickinson," was Dickinson's work restored closer to her original intention. The collection garnered wide recognition for her innovating talent, a regard that continues to this day.

At least eleven of Dickinson's poems were dedicated to her sister-in-law Susan Huntington Gilbert Dickinson. Some scholars believe censorship helped to obscure the nature of Emily and Susan's relationship, which has been interpreted as romantic.