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American Literary Masters:

American Literary Masters:. Emily Dickinson. Emily Dickinson. 1830-1886. Emily Dickinson: Biography. Born 1830 in Amherst, MA Grandfather founded Amherst College (where she attended)

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American Literary Masters:

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  1. American Literary Masters: Emily Dickinson

  2. Emily Dickinson 1830-1886

  3. Emily Dickinson: Biography • Born 1830 in Amherst, MA • Grandfather founded Amherst College (where she attended) • Known as reclusive/private; most of her work crafted in the form of letters/ correspondence written from home • ED ‘The woman in white’ “A solemn thing – it was – I said – A Woman – White – to be – And wear – if God should count me fit – Her blameless mystery –” (Dickinson, 1861)

  4. Emily Dickinson: Biography Despite her prolific writing, fewer than a dozen poems were published in her lifetime She died in 1886 (age = 55) Younger sister Lavinia discovered the collection of nearly eighteen hundred poems Dickinson's first volume was published four years after her death. First official anthology 1955 publication of Dickinson's Complete Poems by Thomas H. Johnson

  5. Emily Dickinson: Influences Dickinson’s literary influences: • William Wordsworth • Ralph Waldo Emerson • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Kavanagh) • Charlotte Bronte (Jane Eyre) • William Shakespeare (Othello; King Lear; Hamlet)

  6. Emily Dickinson: Periods Dickinson’s Poetry: Periods • Dickinson’s poems generally fall into three distinct periods, the works in each period having certain general characters in common: • Pre-1861 • Conventional and sentimental in nature • 1861-1865 • Vigorous, creative and emotionally driven • Themes of life and death • Post-1866

  7. Emily Dickinson: Style Dickinson’s Poetry: Style • Syntax: • Extensive use of dashes • Unconventional capitalization • Idiosyncratic vocabulary and imagery • Use of paradox (self-defeating truth) • Structure: • Opted for trimeter and tetrameter; avoided pentameter • Employed ballad stanza; quatrains • ABCB rhyme scheme; slant rhyme • Resonances fit to melodies of folk songs and hymns

  8. Emily Dickinson: Themes Dickinson’s Poetry: Major Themes • Flowers and gardens • One of Dickinson’s greatest passions was botany; saw gardens as “imaginative realms” and their flowers as “emblems for action” • The Master poems • Confessional poetry addressed to “Signor”/“Sir” • Morbidity • Fascination with illness, dying and death • Gospel poems • Preoccupation with the teachings of Jesus Christ • The Undiscovered Continent • Dickinson saw the mind and spirit as tangible, visitable place

  9. Emily Dickinson: Quotes “My friends are my estate.” “A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day.” “Morning without you is a dwindled dawn.” “Saying nothing…sometimes says the most.” “A wounded deer leaps the highest.” “To love is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.” “People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.” “I dwell in possibility.”

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