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Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson.

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Emily Dickinson

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  1. Emily Dickinson

  2. Emily Dickinson grew up in a prominent Massachusetts family. She experienced a quiet family life headed by her father. She once described the atmosphere in her father's house as "pretty much all sobriety." (Doriani) Her mother was not as powerful a presence in her life; she seems not to have been as emotionally accessible as Dickinson would have liked. (Doriani) Both parents raised Dickinson to be a cultured Christian woman, who would one day be responsible for a family of her own. Her father attempted to protect her from reading books that might "joggle" her mind, particularly her religious faith. Dickinson's individualistic instincts, however, created conflicts that caused her to reject the conventional life prescribed by her father and the church. (Emily)

  3. Dickinson withdrew not only from her father's public world but also from almost all social life . She refused to see most people, and except for a single year at South Hadley Female Seminary , one excursion to Philadelphia, and several brief trips to Boston to see an eye doctor, she lived all her life in her father's house. (Emily) She dressed only in white and developed a reputation as reclusive and eccentric. Dickinson selected her own friends carefully and frugally. Like her poetry, her relationship to the world was intensely private. Indeed, during the last twenty years of her life she rarely left the house. Dickinson published only three poems anonymously during her lifetime. The rest of her poems were published by friends after her death. (Emily)

  4. Though Dickinson never married, she had significant relationships with several men who were friends and mentors. She also enjoyed an intimate relationship with her friend Susan Gilbert, who became her sister-in-law by marrying her brother. They lived next door and were extremely close with Dickinson. (Emily) Biographers have attempted to find the source for the passion of some of her love poems, but no one has been able to identify the object of Dickinson's love. What matters is not with whom she was in love--if, in fact, there was any single person--but that she wrote about such passions so intensely and convincingly. (Doriani)

  5. Writers contemporary to her had little upon the style of her writing. In her own work she was original and innovative, but she did draw upon her knowledge of the Bible, classical myths, and Shakespeare for allusions. (Doriani) Dickinson found irony, lurking in the simplest and commonest experiences. The subject matter of her poetry is quite conventional: utilizing robins, bees, winter light, household items, and domestic duties. Her themes center around love, life, nature, and death. (Doriani)

  6. Though her subjects were conventional, her treatment of them was innovative, because she was willing to break conventions that stood in the way of the intensity of her thoughts and images. Typically, she offers her observations via one or two images in each poem that reveal her thoughts in a powerful manner. (Doriani) Her poems require active engagement from the reader, because she seems to leave out so much with her elliptical style and contracting metaphors. But these apparent gaps are filled with meaning if we are sensitive to her use of personification, allusion, symbolism, and startling syntax and grammar. (Doriani)

  7. Work Cited Doriani, Beth Maclay. Emily Dickinson daughter of prophecy. Amherst, Massachusetts: University of Massachusetts press, c1996. Emily Dickinson. American Council of Learned Societies. Published by Oxford University Press. Source: http://www.anb.org/articles/16 /16- 00453.html.

  8. Time and Eternity I HEARD a fly buzz when I died;    The stillness round my form Was like the stillness in the air    Between the heaves of storm.    The eyes beside had wrung them dry, And breaths were gathering sure For that last onset, when the king    Be witnessed in his power.   

  9. I willed my keepsakes, signed away    What portion of me I Could make assignable,—and then    There interposed a fly,    With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz,    Between the light and me; And then the windows failed, and then I could not see to see.

  10. LoveHEART, we will forget him!    You and I, to-night! You may forget the warmth he gave,    I will forget the light.    When you have done, pray tell me, That I my thoughts may dim; Haste! lest while you’re lagging,    I may remember him!

  11. NatureTHE SPIDER as an artist    Has never been employed Though his surpassing merit    Is freely certified    By every broom and Bridget Throughout a Christian land. Neglected son of genius,    I take thee by the hand.

  12. Because I Could Not Stop for Death • Because I could not stop for Death,He kindly stopped for me;The carriage held but just ourselvesAnd Immortality.We slowly drove, he knew no haste,And I had put awayMy labour, and my leisure too,For his civility.We passed the school where children played,Their lessons scarcely done;We passed the fields of gazing grain,We passed the setting sun.We paused before a house that seemedA swelling of the ground;The roof was scarcely visible,The cornice but a mound.Since then 'tis centuries; but eachFeels shorter than the dayI first surmised the horses' headsWere toward eternity.

  13. Tell All the Truth But Tell It SlantTell all the Truth but tell it slant---Success in Circuit liesToo bright for our infirm DelightThe Truth's superb surpriseAs Lightening to the Children easedWith explanation kindThe Truth must dazzle graduallyOr every man be blind---

  14. The Dragonfly The dragonfly is a curious being He has transparent wings His wings are strong and vital No matter what the wind brings He eats the insects like flies and ants And pesky mosquitoes and bees He worth is surely amazing His beauty is the key He comes in vibrant colors Like red and blue and green He makes an awesome picture Like none I’ve ever seen

  15. But something I can’t understand Is how he got his name A dragon is a fiery monster While the dragonfly is tame He may be large like a darner Or tiny like a forktail But my admiration for him Will certainly never fail He dances out above the pond Weaving up and down and in and out He never has collisions As he gads about So I would like to change his call From a dragon to a dancer I think that surely is a name To which he’d rather answer Mrs. Eidener (ala Emily Dickinson)

  16. Death Comes Is death to you a Friend or Foe? I guess that surely depends On how you lived your life on Earth The whys, the hows, the whens He comes if you are ready He comes if you are not He comes at his own pleasure You don’t know the time you’ve got And when Death comes to call for you May you be ready to go And may your time on Earth Have brought joy to those you’ve known! • Mrs. Eidner (ala Emily Dickinson)

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