Emily Dickinson Biography

Emily Dickinson, full name, Emily Elizabeth Dickinson, was an American poet born on December 10, 1830, at the family homestead in Amherst, Massachusetts. With American poet Walt Whitman, Dickson is regarded as one of the two renowned 19th century American poets. Out of the 1800 poems written by her, 10 poems are known to have been published during her lifetime. Devoted to the personal pursuit, she shared most of her books with her friends and equivalents while possibly keeping a greater number of books to herself. Dickinson's poems were peculiar as the lines of the poems were short, and often used alliteration as well as regularised capitalization and punctuation. Most of Emily Dickinson’s poems dealt with themes of death and mortality and were also based on society, aesthetics, nature, and spirituality. Read on to know about the life and work of Emily Dickinson.

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Who Was Emily Elizabeth Dickinson?

Emily Dickinson, born on December 10, 1830, was an American poet best known for her unconventional writing. She joined Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley for one year. During her course of life, she rarely left her home and her visitors were few. The people with whom she was close had an extensive impact on her story. During her first tour to Philadelphia in 1854, she met Philadelphia clergyman, Reverend Charles Wadsworth, who is believed to be an inspiration for many poems composed by her.

About Emily Dickinson  Early Life  and Education

Emily Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830, into a literate, popular and respectable family residing in Amherst, Massachusetts. She was the middle child to her parents Edward Dickinson and Emily Norcross Dickinson. Her grandfather, Samuel Dickinson was the owner of the renowned Amherst college. Her father, Edward Dickinson was an American learned lawyer, politician, and trustee of Amherst College, whereas her mother, Emily Norcross Dickinson was highly focused on housekeeping and gardening.

Emily Dickinson's early life was spent with her loving parents and two siblings namely William Austin and Lavin Norcross at their homestead. After the birth of Emily's younger sister Lavina, her family moved to Pleasant Street in Amherst in 1833. As a young child, Emily proved as a bright and dedicated student. She had a sharp mind and was able to create various original writings of rhythmic stories, cheering her classmates. 

Emily Dickinson joined Amherst Academy from 1840-1847. After schooling, At the age of 17, she joined Mount Holyoke Female Seminary (now Mount Holyoke College) in 1847. She stayed almost for one year at the Seminary and was able to study a range of subjects from Latin to English Literature. However, she was not able to continue her studies for long due to her ill health. After a continuous cough developed, her father asked her to leave college and brought her back home. Hence, she left college without receiving any formal qualification, but she was able to broaden her knowledge and vocabulary.

About Emily Dickinson Work and Literary Revelation 

Emily was both a desirable artist and a skilled musician. During her college days, she enjoyed referring to the similarities between poetry and singing. Emily also had keen eyesight for beautiful art, this visual realism and her appreciation of dark colours are often observed in many of her poems.

The poetry of Ralph Waldo Emerson was introduced to Emily by one of her father's students, Benjamin Franklin Newton. Newton was a young law student who was acquainted with contemporary literature. He was the first person able to recognize the poetic capabilities of Emily and convinced her to write poems. The writings of other renowned poets, specifically, Emerson, were significant for Dickinson in enhancing the spiritual ideas beyond the rigid Calvinism. 

Although Emily had a creative vision and unorthodox thinking, she often disbelieved her own convictions; thus influences of Emerson and other renowned poets were of great importance to encourage her to come forward. To encourage her writing skills, Newton also gifted Emily a collection of Emerson books that she described as written to “ touch a secret spring”. At the age of 20, she was able to read everything from ‘The Holy Bible’ to contemporary literature. She also wrote a letter to his brother in which he expressed her desire to write.

On returning home from college, she learned much of the domestic chores, helping her mother with sewing, cleaning, and entertaining. Emily was said to be a beautiful girl, with music and bright eyes. 

About Emily Dickinson Manuscript of Work

As only a few of Dickinson’s poems were published in her lifetime, editors and scholars of Dickinson’s work made every attempt to transform Dickinson’s letters and handwritten manuscripts to develop a better understanding of the poet's writing process and relationship to her work. Great variations were observed in Dickinson’s manuscripts. She often left with varied word choices in the margins and often introduced alternative versions of poems. This exhibits that Emily did not have any intentions to introduce a definitive version of each of her poems.

However, American editor and writer Mabel Loomis Todd and Thomas Wentworth Higginson edited her poems to introduce them to the world, which they felt were important for nineteenth-century readers. Working from paraphrasing of Dickinson’s manuscripts, Todd and Higginson arranged the poems into different groups, regularized capitalization, and punctuation changed the poems’ vocabulary, and also removed certain stanzas. Dickinson did not even add any titles to her poems titles, though they were added by Todd and Higginson. Dickinson sent a number of poems to her close friends and collected many of her manuscripts into small, hand-folded books, what her early editors called "fascicles." It should be noted that Dickinson’s poems survive in multiple versions, which makes it quite difficult to identify "true" versions of each of her poems, if not impossible.

When Did Dickinson First Poem Publish?

Although Dickinson was a creative private poet, only 10 out of 1,800 poems composed by her were published while she was alive. The poems written by Dickinson that were published during her lifetime were significantly changed by the publishers to match the conventional poetic rules of the time. Her poems are unique for the period in which she wrote. The poems composed by Emily contain short lines, generally without titles, and often she uses slant rhyme as well as unconventional capitalization and punctuation. Many of her Dickinson poems were based on the themes of death and immortality.

Dickinson's acquaintances were not much cognizant of her writing skill. Also, her writing skills were not revealed until after her death in 1886, when Lavinia, Dickinson's younger sister, discovered her collections of poems in her bedroom. In 1890, Dickinson's first collection of poetry was published by Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd, though both were highly involved in the editing of the content.

As per the 1998 New York Times article, it was revealed that of the many edits made by editors and the name "Susan" was often deliberately removed. Almost 11 of Dickinson's poems were dedicated to sister-in-law Susan Huntington Gilbert Dickinson, though all the dedications were obliterated, presumably by Todd. Dickinson's complete and unmodified compilation of poems became available for the first time when “The Poems of Emily Dickinson” was published by scholar Thomas H. Johnson in 1955.

Here is the list of Dickinson Emily top 10 poems published in different time periods.

Dickinson  Emily Top 10 Poems

Emily Dickinson Death

After suffering from a long illness, Emily Dickinson died at the age of 55 years old on May 15, 1886, in Amherst, Massachusetts. According to the Dickinson death certificate, she died from Bright’s disease (an inflammatory illness of the kidneys). But her new research into her medication and symptoms states that the author has actually suffered from heart failure or a brain haemorrhage, due to high blood pressure.

In her letters, it was observed that the poet was suffering from severe headaches and sickness, while she strived to breathe after falling into a coma as her last resort. It was also observed Dickinson, who died at the age of 55 years, was complete;y prepared for her passing. Before the poet died, she left strict instructions for her funeral, choosing her clothing, coffin, and even mapping out a route for the mourners to take.

In short, Emily Dickinson was an introverted American poet whose life has remained a mystery. Although not much popular during her lifetime, she has been determined as one the most important personalities in American poets.