Emily Elizabeth Dickinson is regarded as one of America’s greatest and most original poets. In her lifetime, she challenged people’s beliefs about poetry. She freed this medium from it conventional restraints by experimenting with figurative language and pushing the limits of expressions. She connected to readers through her creation of limitless escapes and challenged society’s views of the inevitable. She cultivated all of her experiences into her work and granted the world poetry that continues to inspire readers, writers, and students.
We will be going over her background and influences to better understand what led her to create such moving poetry. Her story begins on December 19th, 1830, in Amherst, Massachusetts. Edward Dickinson, the poets father, studied at Amherst College. Soon after he went to Yale to continue his education. Then he returned home, also known as the Homestead, to join his father’s practice in law in 1813. Her mother, Emily (Norcross) Dickinson is usually represented as a passive wife, but evidence suggest she was an outgoing young lady with a dedication to her studies and a passion for science. They saw how education led to success and ;thus held it in high esteem. It’s only natural that they emphasized the importance of education to their children.
The three Dickinson children attended Amherst Academy which had connections to Amherst College. They offered students the opportunity to sit in on college lectures. Subjects included: mathematics, sciences, humanities, and so on. Her opinion on how the education system inappropriately took on its duty to teaching students science can be seen in her poem, “Arcturus’ is his other name”. In this poem she writes, “I pull a flower from the woods-/A monster with a glass/Computes the stamens in a breath-/And has her in a class!” (Bartleby).
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In this poem, the reader can feel her vivid interest in the subject matter of science, nature, and education. Although she cherishes what she learns about, she did not completely agree on how the education system operated. One critic summarized the poem to mean, “It’s system interfered with the observer’s preferences; its study took the life out of living things.” (poetry foundation) The reader can see she was a keen observer. She had the vocabulary and diction to communicate what she saw and felt. Education had an enormous impact on her. Her keen observation sprouted from a unique sense of curiosity. Her parents, siblings, and education played a huge role in creating who she was as a writer.
Dickinson is widely known for her self-induced isolation. Many have speculated it was her father’s decision to pull her from school or a growing frustration and depression from the expectations of an unmarried lady of the “Homestead” that lead her to isolation. Due to her father’s position in society, he believed that it was important that visits were a part of keeping a social standing, in turn, people were welcome into their home all the time. Eventually, she would limit the number of people she would see. The only duties she who lay a hand on where baking bread, tending to the gardens and being a confidante for her brother.
By becoming her brother’s counselor, it allowed critics to see into her values. She deeply believed that a “young man should emerge from his education with a firm loyalty to home” and have “a ruthless intellectual honesty” (poetry foundation). The first value was based on loyalty and the second moral value was her creation. She had warned her brother of taking others ideas for his. She was a firm believer that no one needed to rely on what was already done. It was time to expand and challenge what has not been done yet. It was time to be original.
This need to be original is not only seen in her letters to her brother but in her poetry as well. Everything seems to be a recycled idea these days, but the mentality and drive to do something new is what Dickinson always had. Writers need to be able to question and analyze what has not yet been done. Today’s readers and writers can still be inspired by her originality. By the 1850s, she was the last of the Dickinson’s to not be a member of the church. In her rebellion, she wrote, “’Tis not to sight the savior-/It is to be the saved-/And that is why I lay my Head/Upon this trusty word-”(“Escape is such a thankful Word” by Emily Dickinson) (famouspoetsandpoems).
In this poem, when she refers to the word escape in conjunction with the world soul. In her mind freedom was the only thing that led to salvation or redemption. This would be better understood with the poem, “The Soul has Bandaged moments”, which describes her thoughts on how the soul is defined by moments. As a person passes through their life, they will move through “Bandaged moments”. Critics summarize the line, “The soul has moments of escape-/ When bursting all the doors-/ She dances like a Bomb, abroad,/And swings open the Hours,” (poetryfoundation) as the soul goes through hard events it will not be confined. These two poems above were Dickinson’s way of refusing to do what people expected of her.
Whether it was her father’s expectations or what people expected women to write about in poetry, Dickinson did what she wanted. She tackled the big and small issues. Students today can be inspired and see that poetry does not need to be limited. Throughout Dickinson’s life, she sent many letters filled with poetry to friends and “Masters”. Around 1858 she weeded out even more social calls. Writing letters was the closest thing she came to “visit”. It was a way of focusing on what she truly wanted to say. There were no interruptions or polite talk. It seemed that she might have used them as practice for the art of writing at one point, but then they turned into her performance pieces. As time passed friendships passed and eventually many friends died. Time continued to pass and correspondence with friends through letters got less and less. Her writing took a turn for the more cryptic side.
Letters could be found riddled with aphorisms and allusions. Although the subject matter might have been intense, the chaos that was found in the world was not separate. She tried to get her reader to believe that each broken piece was part of a bigger relation. The tone of her letters and poems from the 1850s to the 1860s shift in tone. First, the poems speak to readers in a rich language then move towards their “signature economy expression”(poetryfoundation). Around 1858 her poems showed her signature four beats and three beats line that alternated. Her word choice and arrangement of words worked together to exaggerate her point along with her metric pattern. She created her style by combining cadence with the rhythm of the hymn.
This space was her playground for poetic creativity. She could explore her subject matter due to her forms predictability. In many of her poems, she would use one term in conjunction with another, therefore giving it a new definition by defining it with another term. In doing so it might have given both terms a new meaning. Her vocabulary and perspective would transform words. A word at the beginning of a poem may have gotten a new meaning by the ending. It was the beauty of her vocabulary circles. To show her growth over time, we will dissect the following poem, “You’re right”. In this poem she writes, ‘‘Tis Costly – so are purples!/‘Tis just the price of Breath -/With but the “Discount” of the Grave -/Termed by the Brokers – ”Death”(poemhunter).
This poem is a conversation about who will be able to enter the Holy City, Heaven. The rhythm and image in this poem undermine the meaning of each biblical quotation. Although the poem begins with biblical quotations she creates a secular space in this poem. There are highlights of the financial world with terms like “discounts” and “brokers.” Each line in this poem respects the hymn meter, except the last one. Then it ends incomplete. The last line, the only line that doesn’t follow the hymn pattern ends with the sound of a double s that’s open. So that when someone reads it, it not only feels incomplete but also sounds uncertain.
Just like in the last line of this poem, many of Dickinson’s poems are left open-ended. It’s emphasizes its impact and leaves room for the reader to continue the poem in their own thoughts. In 1886, one of America’s finest poets died in Amherst. Her family later found her “fascicles” or books that included over 1,800 of her original poems. Luckily, they were later published and completely restored in 1998.
Today, she is continuing to impact the lives of readers, writers, and students every day. Her poem’s show that there is no limit to what can be written or created through this medium. Poetry has a certain beauty that only it can create. Due to sound, definition, rhythm, and more only poetry can create it’s kind of impact. With a pen and paper, she challenged social norms and everyday thinking. In times of despair, she created her own escape and sometimes created her own cryptic grave. Her use of figurative language, rhyme, meter, and so on showed that each piece can be placed together to create a whole new world.
Through her writing, she has been able to inspire originality, creativity, and has always pushed the limits of what poetry is thought to be. She redefined poetry in her own way. If I was personally able to teach students about Emily Dickinson’s work, I would not only highlight poetry and techniques. It would be about her story, the controversial truths she sought, and why these works still hold an impact today. Hopefully, I would be able to inspire students to be great writers and great people.
