Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born on December 10, 1930 in Massachusetts. She was the second child born to a well known family.
Although we know Emily Dickinson today as a famous American writer, she hardly published any of her work during her lifetime. She only corresponded with her family and friends, and it was to them that she sent her poems and stories.
It was only after her death that her younger sister, Lavinia, discovered her works. Her first collection of poems were in fact published in 1890 four years after her demise.
Emily was an introvert and lived a reclusive life. She was known for her simple white clothing, and her reserved and quiet nature. She was even reluctant to meet and greet guests who came to visit her.
Emily never married during her lifetime and she did not have any children. However, her poetry reflects a lot of passion and intensity. Her poems were mostly written in solitude and carry its unique perspectives on friendship, relationship, nature, love, life and death. She was noted for her revolutionary use of words, breaking the conventional rules of poetry which existed during her times.
Her lines carry a lot of inner meaning and she established on her own literary standards. Her contribution to the language is immense and she brought in a new phase of poetry and often altered words to suit the ear.
During her last years, her poetry reflected a lot on death since she lost nearly all her dear and loved ones, including her parents and her nephew.Emily suffered an attack on June 14, 1884 on June 14 and died two years later on May 15, 1886.
Although Emily Dickinson lived a private and secluded life, it did not make her a bad person. She just enjoyed being alone. She enjoyed reading and writing poetry, it is what made her happy. Everyone has something they love to do or a release from something, Emily’s was writing. I am sure that there was another reason she never left her room, but no one will ever know. The only way anyone knew about Emily was through her writings. Some people say she had a secret love for Susan, but personally I think she valued her friendship. She expressed their friendship through poetry, but some people took it the wrong way.
Finally, Emily got enough courage to send in four of her poems to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, to be published. (Dickinson, New Book 153) Emily’s poems were new and original, not like any other poems he had ever read before. (Dickinson, New Book 153) At first he did not like her poems then he became a friend of hers and helped her improve them. (Dickinson, New Book 153) All her poems were hid in a chest in her bedroom. Only seven of Emily’s poems were published in her lifetime, all anonymous without her full consent.
Emily Dickenson, a famous American writer born on December 10, 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts became more famous after her death since her first collection was published nearly four years after her demise because of the sincere efforts of her younger sister, Lavinia Norcross Dickinson.
Timeline Of Emily Dickinson:
1830: Birth of Emily Dickenson in Amherst, Massachusetts on December 10
1833: Lavinia Norcross Dickinson, Emily's younger sister was born
1835: Emily began her primary school but missed lot of sessions due to frequent illness. Yet, she topped her studies
1840: Emily attended Amherst academy and was an excellent student. Her friendship with Leonard Humphrey, the young principal of the academy started blooming. He was one of her close friends and mentor
1848: Met Benjamin Franklin Newton and they become very close friends
1849: Benjamin left Emily which devastated her. She started poetry writing seriously but did not reveal her interest to her family
1850: Leonard Humphrey, her friend and mentor died due to brain congestion
1853: Emily’s close friend Benjamin Franklin Newton died due to tuberculosis
1874: Emily’s father died
1875: Emily’s mother was struck with paralysis and hence, Emily had to take care of her and she started leading a more introverted and secluded life
1882: Emily’s mother passed away and that really affected her
1884: Emily suffers her first attack
1886: Emily Dickenson passes away on May 15
Emily’s numerous works portrayed powerful, unique and revolutionary perspectives on friendship, relationship, nature, love, life and death. During her last years, since she lost all her close family and friends, the reclusive and introverted writer never left her room. Her last work reflected on death and the trauma associated with the demise.
Emily Dickinson, a famous American poet was born in Massachusetts to an educated and politically active family. She has written almost 1775 poems during her lifetime but she published very few of them. After her death, her younger sister Lavinia, discovered her works and published her first collection in 1890. |
The following is a list of some of her famous poems:
- A Bird Came Down
- A Door Just Opened on a Street
- A Drop Fell on the Apple Tree
- A Light Exists in Spring
- A Long, Long Sleep, a Famous Sleep
- A Narrow Fellow in the Grass
- A Thought Went up My Mind To-Day
- After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes
- Because I Could Not Stop for Death
- Death Sets a Thing of Significant
- Delight Becomes Pictorial
- Departed to the Judgment
- Each Life Converges to Some Centre
- For Each Ecstatic Instant
- God Gave a Loaf to Every Bird
- God Permit Industrious Angels
- He Fumbles at Your Spirit
- Heaven is What I Cannot Reach!
- Hope is the Thing With Feathers
- I Cannot Live With You
- I Died for Beauty But Was Scarce
- I Felt a Funeral in My Brain
- I Found the Phrase to Every Thought
- I Had Been Hungry All the Years
- I Had No Time to Hate, Because
- I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died
- I Like to See It Lap the Miles
- I Lived on Dread; to Those Who Know
- I Measure Every Grief I Meet
- I Never Hear the Word "Escape"
- I Never Saw a Moor
- I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed
- If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking
- If You Were Coming in the Fall
- I'm Nobody! Who Are You?
- Success is Counted Sweetest
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