This article was written by Chloe Goldberg of Richard Montgomery High School
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson: a name known throughout the world for her reclusive life, unique writing style and prolific poetry. Although she is hailed today as one of the greatest American poets of the 19th century, much of her work went undiscovered during her lifetime. Here’s a look at the poet’s life, death and ultimate rise to greatness.
Emily Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts to Edward Dickinson and Emily Norcross Dickinson on Dec. 10, 1830. She was the second of three children, with an older brother named William and a younger sister named Lavinia. Her family was relatively privileged; her father was a Whig lawyer, and served one term in Congress.
Dickinson attended primary school, then the local Amherst Academy. She enjoyed school, excelling in Latin and the sciences. Her love for the environment is reflected in her poetry—her works are rich with natural subjects and scientific vocabulary. In 1847, she enrolled at the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary. She attended for only one year, and the exact reason behind her departure remains unknown. Possible causes include homesickness and ill health. Another factor could have been Mount Holyoke’s emphasis on religion.
Dickinson was raised in an evangelical Calvinist household. Despite attending religious services as a child and reading the King James Bible, she never became a member of the church. Nevertheless, religion was a prominent theme in her poetry, through biblical references and themes of death and immortality.
Although known for poetry, Dickinson wrote mostly letters until her mid-20s. They were sent to friends and family, and provided a place for her to practice and develop her style. When she did begin writing poetry, Dickinson sent many of her poems alongside her letters.
In the summer of 1858, Dickinson began grouping her poems into manuscript books called fascicles. She would write final versions of her poems on sheets of paper, binding them with string. By 1860, Dickinson had written over 160 poems. Five years later, that number had increased to 1,100. In total, Dickinson constructed 40 fascicles, consisting of nearly 1,800 poems.
Emily Dickinson tackled philosophical concepts such as death, love and identity with familiar metaphors from nature, religion and domestic life. Her poems were often short, with a single speaker sharing their thoughts on a subject. She experimented with meter and rhyme, and frequently used dashes. Dickinson’s vocabulary was extensive, and her edits focused on word choices rather than grammar.
During her lifetime, Dickinson published a mere ten poems and one letter, all anonymously. The letter appeared in an Amherst College student publication in 1850. Of the poems, seven were published by Samuels Bowles and Josiah Holland, editors of the Springfield Republican newspaper and correspondents of Dickinson. Today, there is debate over whether these works were published with her consent.
Emily Dickinson never married. In 1864 and 1865, she stayed with cousins in Cambridge to receive treatment for an eye ailment. This was the last time she traveled outside of Amherst. She became increasingly reclusive, earning her nicknames such as “The Myth of Amherst” and “The Nun of Amherst”. She did, however, continue writing letters and receiving visitors. Dickinson developed a romance with the widower Judge Otis Phillips Lord, and drafts of her letters suggest she even considered marrying him.
Her later years were marked by the deaths of many friends and family members. Eventually, Dickinson herself fell ill. She was bedridden for seven months before dying on May 15, 1886 in Amherst.
After Dickinson’s death, her sister Lavinia discovered her fascicles, along with 15 unbound sets of poems and various unfinished works. Lavinia decided to publish them, giving them to Mabel Loomis Todd, the wife of an Amherst college professor. Todd worked with Thomas Wentworth Higginson, one of Dickinson’s correspondents, to edit the poems. They added titles, changed punctuation and even altered words. The first book, Poems of Emily Dickinson, was published in 1890. After its success, Todd published Poems of Emily Dickinson, Second Series in 1891. This was followed by a collection of letters in 1894, and Poems of Emily Dickinson, Third Series in 1896.
In the 1920s and 1930s, Dickinson’s niece Martha Dickinson Bianchi continued publishing her vast body of work. Having inherited manuscripts, Bianchi edited at least six volumes. Unlike Todd and Higginson, she did not add titles or change words.
It wasn’t until 1955 that a single edition containing all of Dickinson’s poems was published. By studying the handwriting on her original manuscripts, literary scholar Thomas H. Johnson was able to arrange the works in chronological order. In 1981, Ralph W. Franklin reassembled Dickinson’s fascicles, publishing her works in their intended order as The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson. Franklin published another edition of completed poems in 1998, restoring Dickinson’s original punctuation and spelling.
Today, Dickinson’s poems have been translated into many languages and read across the globe. Many consider her to be one of the most important American poets, recognizing her as a founder of the American poetic voice. Decades after her death, Emily Dickinson’s works continue to enrapture and inspire readers worldwide.
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