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Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson. Early Life . Father was a minister from Amherst, Mass Patriarchal and scholarly Emily and siblings expected to follow his rules

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Emily Dickinson

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  1. Emily Dickinson

  2. Early Life • Father was a minister from Amherst, Mass • Patriarchal and scholarly • Emily and siblings expected to follow his rules • Was social in her youth: "I am growing handsome very fast indeed! I expect I shall be the belle of Amherst when I reach my 17th year. I don't doubt that I will have crowds of admirers at that age” • Attended Mount Holyoke for a year, but returned to Amherst • Dickinson's letters to her brother also reveal a growing sense of "difference" between herself and others: “What makes a few of us so different from others? It’s a question I often ask myself”. • Never joined the church like her family did: "I am one of the lingering bad ones"

  3. Some say she was a recluse… • Lived at the Homestead, her family’s property • Her brother (who had married her close friend Susan Gilbert) lived next door: it was a lively place for Amherst society – lots of gatherings!

  4. A Recluse? • "Master Letters:” drafts of letters that suggest a serious and troubled (though unidentified) romantic attachment that some scholars believe drove Dickinson's creative output. During this time Dickinson also referred to a trauma that she described in a letter: "I had a terror -- since September -- I could tell to none" (L261) • Possible love interest: Ben Newton: older, guided reading, introduced to her to new ways of thinking/nature • Died of TB five years later, but seems to have played a role in Emily’s passion • Another possible love interest: Rev. Charles Wadsworth: “tried to teach me immortality” • “greatest friend” of her life – loooooove?? • Newton and Wadswoth: “My life closed twice before its close” and “Parting is all we know of heaven/And all we need of hell.”

  5. Poetry • Only 7 poems published in lifetime (she wrote over 2,000) because she decided against it – people kept trying to change her style! • Her definition of poetry: "If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only way I know it. Is there any other way?” • Style: simple, passionate, sharp, intense imagery, melody (some poems can be “sung” to hymns), ambiguous, witty, frank, innovative, personal • “ellipsis of thought” • Confined to the things she knew – but somehow relevant to all • Make the familiar seem strange/new**

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