emily dickinson biography essay

Emily Dickinson

(1830-1886)

Who Was Emily Dickinson?

Emily Dickinson left school as a teenager, eventually living a reclusive life on the family homestead. There, she secretly created bundles of poetry and wrote hundreds of letters. Due to a discovery by sister Lavinia, Dickinson's remarkable work was published after her death — on May 15, 1886, in Amherst — and she is now considered one of the towering figures of American literature.

Early Life and Education

Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830, in Amherst, Massachusetts. Her family had deep roots in New England. Her paternal grandfather, Samuel Dickinson, was well known as the founder of Amherst College. Her father worked at Amherst and served as a state legislator. He married Emily Norcross in 1828 and the couple had three children: William Austin, Emily and Lavinia Norcross.

An excellent student, Dickinson was educated at Amherst Academy (now Amherst College) for seven years and then attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary for a year. Though the precise reasons for Dickinson's final departure from the academy in 1848 are unknown; theories offered say that her fragile emotional state may have played a role and/or that her father decided to pull her from the school. Dickinson ultimately never joined a particular church or denomination, steadfastly going against the religious norms of the time.

Family Dynamics and Writing

Among her peers, Dickinson's closest friend and adviser was a woman named Susan Gilbert, who may have been an amorous interest of Dickinson's as well. In 1856, Gilbert married Dickinson's brother, William. The Dickinson family lived on a large home known as the Homestead in Amherst. After their marriage, William and Susan settled in a property next to the Homestead known as the Evergreens. Emily and sister Lavinia served as chief caregivers for their ailing mother until she passed away in 1882. Neither Emily nor her sister ever married and lived together at the Homestead until their respective deaths.

Dickinson's seclusion during her later years has been the object of much speculation. Scholars have thought that she suffered from conditions such as agoraphobia, depression and/or anxiety, or may have been sequestered due to her responsibilities as guardian of her sick mother. Dickinson was also treated for a painful ailment of her eyes. After the mid-1860s, she rarely left the confines of the Homestead. It was also around this time, from the late 1850s to mid-'60s, that Dickinson was most productive as a poet, creating small bundles of verse known as fascicles without any awareness on the part of her family members.

In her spare time, Dickinson studied botany and produced a vast herbarium. She also maintained correspondence with a variety of contacts. One of her friendships, with Judge Otis Phillips Lord, seems to have developed into a romance before Lord's death in 1884.

Death and Discovery

Dickinson died of heart failure in Amherst, Massachusetts, on May 15, 1886, at the age of 55. She was laid to rest in her family plot at West Cemetery. The Homestead, where Dickinson was born, is now a museum .

Little of Dickinson's work was published at the time of her death, and the few works that were published were edited and altered to adhere to conventional standards of the time. Unfortunately, much of the power of Dickinson's unusual use of syntax and form was lost in the alteration. After her sister's death, Lavinia discovered hundreds of poems that Dickinson had crafted over the years. The first volume of these works was published in 1890. A full compilation, The Poems of Emily Dickinson , wasn't published until 1955, though previous iterations had been released.

Dickinson's stature as a writer soared from the first publication of her poems in their intended form. She is known for her poignant and compressed verse, which profoundly influenced the direction of 20th-century poetry. The strength of her literary voice, as well as her reclusive and eccentric life, contributes to the sense of Dickinson as an indelible American character who continues to be discussed today.

QUICK FACTS

• Name: Emily Dickinson
• Birth Year: 1830
• Birth date: December 10, 1830
• Birth State: Massachusetts
• Birth City: Amherst
• Birth Country: United States
• Gender: Female
• Best Known For: Emily Dickinson was a reclusive American poet. Unrecognized in her own time, Dickinson is known posthumously for her innovative use of form and syntax.
• Fiction and Poetry
• Writing and Publishing
• Astrological Sign: Sagittarius
• Mount Holyoke Female Seminary
• Amherst Academy (now Amherst College)
• Interesting Facts
• In addition to writing poetry, Emily Dickinson studied botany. She compiled a vast herbarium that is now owned by Harvard University.
• Death Year: 1886
• Death date: May 15, 1886
• Death State: Massachusetts
• Death City: Amherst
• Death Country: United States

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CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Emily Dickinson Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/authors-writers/emily-dickinson
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• Last Updated: May 7, 2021
• Original Published Date: April 2, 2014
• 'Hope' is the thing with feathers - That perches in the soul - And sings the tunes without the words - And never stops - at all -
• Dwell in possibility.
• The Truth must dazzle gradually/Or every man be blind.
• Truth is so rare, it is delightful to tell it.
• 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?
• Success is counted sweetest/By those who ne'er succeed./To comprehend a nectar/Requires sorest need.

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Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830, in Amherst, Massachusetts. She attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley, but only for one year. Her father, Edward Dickinson, was actively involved in state and national politics, serving in Congress for one term. Her brother, Austin, who attended law school and became an attorney, lived next door with his wife, Susan Gilbert. Dickinson’s younger sister, Lavinia, also lived at home, and she and Austin were intellectual companions for Dickinson during her lifetime.

Dickinson’s poetry was heavily influenced by the Metaphysical poets of seventeenth-century England, as well as her reading of the Book of Revelation and her upbringing in a Puritan New England town, which encouraged a Calvinist, orthodox, and conservative approach to Christianity. She admired the poetry of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning , as well as John Keats . Though she was dissuaded from reading the verse of her contemporary Walt Whitman by rumors of its disgracefulness, the two poets are now connected by the distinguished place they hold as the founders of a uniquely American poetic voice. While Dickinson was extremely prolific and regularly enclosed poems in letters to friends, she was not publicly recognized during her lifetime. The first volume of her work was published posthumously in 1890 and the last in 1955. She died in Amherst in 1886.

Upon her death, Dickinson’s family discovered forty handbound volumes of nearly 1,800 poems, or “fascicles,” as they are sometimes called. Dickinson assembled these booklets by folding and sewing five or six sheets of stationery paper and copying what seem to be final versions of poems. The handwritten poems show a variety of dash-like marks of various sizes and directions (some are even vertical). The poems were initially unbound and published according to the aesthetics of her many early editors, who removed her annotations. The current standard version of her poems replaces her dashes with an en-dash, which is a closer typographical approximation to her intention. The original order of the poems was not restored until 1981, when Ralph W. Franklin used the physical evidence of the paper itself to restore her intended order, relying on smudge marks, needle punctures, and other clues to reassemble the packets. Since then, many critics have argued that there is a thematic unity in these small collections, rather than their order being simply chronological or convenient. The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson (Belknap Press, 1981) is the only volume that keeps the order intact.

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Biography of Emily Dickinson, American Poet

Famously reclusive and experimental in poetic form

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Emily Dickinson (December 10, 1830–May 15, 1886) was an American poet best known for her eccentric personality and her frequent themes of death and mortality. Although she was a prolific writer, only a few of her poems were published during her lifetime. Despite being mostly unknown while she was alive, her poetry—nearly 1,800 poems altogether—has become a staple of the American literary canon, and scholars and readers alike have long held a fascination with her unusual life.

Fast Facts: Emily Dickinson

• Full Name:  Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
• Known For:  American poet
• Born:  December 10, 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts
• Died: May 15, 1886 in Amherst, Massachusetts
• Parents:  Edward Dickinson and Emily Norcross Dickinson
• Education:  Amherst Academy, Mount Holyoke Female Seminary
• Published Works: Poems (1890), Poems: Second Series (1891), Poems: Third Series (1896)
• Notable Quote:  "If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry."

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born into a prominent family in Amherst, Massachusetts. Her father, Edward Dickinson, was a lawyer, a politician, and a trustee of Amherst College , of which his father, Samuel Dickinson, was a founder. He and his wife Emily (nee Norcross ) had three children; Emily Dickinson was the second child and eldest daughter, and she had an older brother, William Austin (who generally went by his middle name), and a younger sister, Lavinia. By all accounts, Dickinson was a pleasant, well-behaved child who particularly loved music.

Because Dickinson’s father was adamant that his children be well-educated, Dickinson received a more rigorous and more classical education than many other girls of her era. When she was ten, she and her sister began attending Amherst Academy, a former academy for boys that had just begun accepting female students two years earlier. Dickinson continued to excel at her studies, despite their rigorous and challenging nature, and studied literature, the sciences, history, philosophy, and Latin. Occasionally, she did have to take time off from school due to repeated illnesses.

Dickinson’s preoccupation with death began at this young age as well. At the age of fourteen, she suffered her first major loss when her friend and cousin Sophia Holland died of typhus . Holland’s death sent her into such a melancholy spiral that she was sent away to Boston to recover. Upon her recovery, she returned to Amherst, continuing her studies alongside some of the people who would be her lifelong friends, including her future sister-in-law Susan Huntington Gilbert.

After completing her education at Amherst Academy, Dickinson enrolled at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary. She spent less than a year there, but explanations for her early departure vary depending on the source: her family wanted her to return home, she disliked the intense, evangelical religious atmosphere, she was lonely, she didn’t like the teaching style. In any case, she returned home by the time she was 18 years old.

Reading, Loss, and Love

A family friend, a young attorney named Benjamin Franklin Newton, became a friend and mentor to Dickinson. It was most likely him who introduced her to the writings of William Wordsworth and Ralph Waldo Emerson , which later influenced and inspired her own poetry. Dickinson read extensively, helped by friends and family who brought her more books; among her most formative influences was the work of William Shakespeare , as well as Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre .

Dickinson was in good spirits in the early 1850s, but it did not last. Once again, people near to her died, and she was devastated. Her friend and mentor Newton died of tuberculosis, writing to Dickinson before he died to say he wished he could live to see her achieve greatness. Another friend, the Amherst Academy principal Leonard Humphrey, died suddenly at only 25 years old in 1850. Her letters and writings at the time are filled with the depth of her melancholy moods.

During this time, Dickinson’s old friend Susan Gilbert was her closest confidante. Beginning in 1852, Gilbert was courted by Dickinson’s brother Austin, and they married in 1856, although it was a generally unhappy marriage. Gilbert was much closer to Dickinson, with whom she shared a passionate and intense correspondence and friendship. In the view of many contemporary scholars, the relationship between the two women was, very likely, a romantic one , and possibly the most important relationship of either of their lives. Aside from her personal role in Dickinson’s life, Gilbert also served as a quasi-editor and advisor to Dickinson during her writing career.

Dickinson did not travel much outside of Amherst, slowly developing the later reputation for being reclusive and eccentric. She cared for her mother, who was essentially homebound with chronic illnesses from the 1850s onward. As she became more and more cut off from the outside world, however, Dickinson leaned more into her inner world and thus into her creative output.

Conventional Poetry (1850s – 1861)

I'm nobody who are you (1891).

I'm Nobody! Who are you? Are you — Nobody — too? Then there's a pair of us! Don't tell! they'd advertise — you know. How dreary — to be — Somebody! How public — like a Frog — To tell one's name — the livelong June — To an admiring Bog!

It’s unclear when, exactly, Dickinson began writing her poems, though it can be assumed that she was writing for some time before any of them were ever revealed to the public or published. Thomas H. Johnson, who was behind the collection The Poems of Emily Dickinson , was able to definitely date only five of Dickinson's poems to the period before 1858. In that early period, her poetry was marked by an adherence to the conventions of the time.

Two of her five earliest poems are actually satirical, done in the style of witty, “mock” valentine poems with deliberately flowery and overwrought language. Two more of them reflect the more melancholy tone she would be better known for. One of those is about her brother Austin and how much she missed him, while the other, known by its first line “I have a Bird in spring,” was written for Gilbert and was a lament about the grief of fearing the loss of friendship.

A few of Dickinson’s poems were published in the Springfield Republican between 1858 and 1868; she was friends with its editor, journalist Samuel Bowles, and his wife Mary. All of those poems were published anonymously, and they were heavily edited, removing much of Dickinson’s signature stylization, syntax, and punctuation. The first poem published, "Nobody knows this little rose,” may have actually been published without Dickinson’s permission. Another poem, “Safe in their Alabaster Chambers,” was retitled and published as “The Sleeping.” By 1858, Dickinson had begun organizing her poems, even as she wrote more of them. She reviewed and made fresh copies of her poetry, putting together manuscript books. Between 1858 and 1865, she produced 40 manuscripts, comprising just under 800 poems.

During this time period, Dickinson also drafted a trio of letters which were later referred to as the “Master Letters.” They were never sent and were discovered as drafts among her papers. Addressed to an unknown man she only calls “Master,” they’re poetic in a strange way that has eluded understanding even by the most educated of scholars. They may not have even been intended for a real person at all; they remain one of the major mysteries of Dickinson’s life and writings.

Prolific Poet (1861 – 1865)

“hope” is the thing with feathers (1891).

"Hope" is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul And sings the tune without the words And never stops at all And sweetest in the Gale is heard And sore must be the storm — That could abash the little Bird That kept so many warm — I've heard it in the chillest land — And on the strangest Sea — Yet, never, in Extremity, It asked a crumb — of Me.

Dickinson’s early 30s were by far the most prolific writing period of her life. For the most part, she withdrew almost completely from society and from interactions with locals and neighbors (though she still wrote many letters), and at the same time, she began writing more and more.

Her poems from this period were, eventually, the gold standard for her creative work. She developed her unique style of writing, with unusual and specific syntax , line breaks, and punctuation. It was during this time that the themes of mortality that she was best known for began to appear in her poems more often. While her earlier works had occasionally touched on themes of grief, fear, or loss, it wasn’t until this most prolific era that she fully leaned into the themes that would define her work and her legacy.

It is estimated that Dickinson wrote more than 700 poems between 1861 and 1865. She also corresponded with literary critic Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who became one of her close friends and lifelong correspondents. Dickinson’s writing from the time seemed to embrace a little bit of melodrama, alongside deeply felt and genuine sentiments and observations.

Later work (1866 – 1870s)

Because i could not stop for death (1890).

Because I could not stop for Death— He kindly stopped for me— The Carriage held but just Ourselves— And Immortality. We slowly drove—He knew no haste, And I had put away My labor and my leisure too, For His Civility— We passed the School, where Children strove At recess—in the ring— We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain— We passed the Setting Sun— Or rather—He passed Us— The Dews drew quivering and chill— For only Gossamer, my Gown— My Tippet—only Tulle— We paused before a House that seemed A Swelling of the Ground— The Roof was scarcely visible— The Cornice—in the Ground— Since then—'tis centuries— and yet Feels shorter than the Day I first surmised the Horses' Heads Were toward Eternity—

By 1866, Dickinson’s productivity began tapering off. She had suffered personal losses, including that of her beloved dog Carlo, and her trusted household servant got married and left her household in 1866. Most estimates suggest that she wrote about one third of her body of work after 1866.

Around 1867, Dickinson’s reclusive tendencies became more and more extreme. She began refusing to see visitors, only speaking to them from the other side of a door, and rarely went out in public. On the rare occasions she did leave the house, she always wore white, gaining notoriety as “the woman in white.” Despite this avoidance of physical socialization, Dickinson was a lively correspondent; around two-thirds of her surviving correspondence was written between 1866 and her death, 20 years later.

Dickinson’s personal life during this time was complicated as well. She lost her father to a stroke in 1874, but she refused to come out of her self-imposed seclusion for his memorial or funeral services. She also may have briefly had a romantic correspondence with Otis Phillips Lord, a judge and a widower who was a longtime friend. Very little of their correspondence survives, but what does survive shows that they wrote to each other like clockwork, every Sunday, and their letters were full of literary references and quotations. Lord died in 1884, two years after Dickinson’s old mentor, Charles Wadsworth, had died after a long illness.

Literary Style and Themes

Even a cursory glance at Dickinson’s poetry reveals some of the hallmarks of her style. Dickinson embraced highly unconventional use of punctuation , capitalization, and line breaks, which she insisted were crucial to the meaning of the poems. When her early poems were edited for publication, she was seriously displeased, arguing the edits to the stylization had altered the whole meaning. Her use of meter is also somewhat unconventional, as she avoids the popular pentameter for tetrameter or trimeter, and even then is irregular in her use of meter within a poem. In other ways, however, her poems stuck to some conventions; she often used ballad stanza forms and ABCB rhyme schemes.

The themes of Dickinson’s poetry vary widely. She’s perhaps most well known for her preoccupation with mortality and death, as exemplified in one of her most famous poems, “Because I did not stop for Death.” In some cases, this also stretched to her heavily Christian themes, with poems tied into the Christian Gospels and the life of Jesus Christ. Although her poems dealing with death are sometimes quite spiritual in nature, she also has a surprisingly colorful array of descriptions of death by various, sometimes violent means.

On the other hand, Dickinson’s poetry often embraces humor and even satire and irony to make her point; she’s not the dreary figure she is often portrayed as because of her more morbid themes. Many of her poems use garden and floral imagery, reflecting her lifelong passion for meticulous gardening and often using the “ language of flowers ” to symbolize themes such as youth, prudence, or even poetry itself. The images of nature also occasionally showed up as living creatures, as in her famous poem “ Hope is the thing with feathers .”

Dickinson reportedly kept writing until nearly the end of her life, but her lack of energy showed through when she no longer edited or organized her poems. Her family life became more complicated as her brother’s marriage to her beloved Susan fell apart and Austin instead turned to a mistress, Mabel Loomis Todd, who Dickinson never met. Her mother died in 1882, and her favorite nephew in 1883.

Through 1885, her health declined, and her family grew more concerned. Dickinson became extremely ill in May of 1886 and died on May 15, 1886. Her doctor declared the cause of death to be Bright’s disease, a disease of the kidneys . Susan Gilbert was asked to prepare her body for burial and to write her obituary, which she did with great care. Dickinson was buried in her family’s plot at West Cemetery in Amherst.

The great irony of Dickinson’s life is that she was largely unknown during her lifetime. In fact, she was probably better known as a talented gardener than as a poet. Fewer than a dozen of her poems were actually published for public consumption when she was alive. It wasn’t until after her death, when her sister Lavinia discovered her manuscripts of over 1,800 poems, that her work was published in bulk. Since that first publication, in 1890, Dickinson’s poetry has never been out of print.

At first, the non-traditional style of her poetry led to her posthumous publications getting somewhat mixed receptions. At the time, her experimentation with style and form led to criticism over her skill and education, but decades later, those same qualities were praised as signifying her creativity and daring. In the 20th century, there was a resurgence of interest and scholarship in Dickinson, particularly with regards to studying her as a female poet , not separating her gender from her work as earlier critics and scholars had.

While her eccentric nature and choice of a secluded life has occupied much of Dickinson’s image in popular culture, she is still regarded as a highly respected and highly influential American poet. Her work is consistently taught in high schools and colleges, is never out of print, and has served as the inspiration for countless artists, both in poetry and in other media. Feminist artists in particular have often found inspiration in Dickinson; both her life and her impressive body of work have provided inspiration to countless creative works.

• Habegger, Alfred.  My Wars Are Laid Away in Books: The Life of Emily Dickinson . New York: Random House, 2001.
• Johnson, Thomas H. (ed.).  The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson . Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1960.
• Sewall, Richard B. The Life of Emily Dickinson . New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1974.
• Wolff, Cynthia Griffin. Emily Dickinson . New York. Alfred A. Knopf, 1986.
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Emily Dickinson’s Biography and Analysis of Poems Essay

Interesting facts, works cited.

Emily Dickinson is considered by many to be among the most talented poets of all time. The prominent poet Emily Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830, in Massachusetts, United States. During her youth, Dickinson barely spent a year attending Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in Amherst (Academy of American Poets). The poet died in her childhood home in Amherst in 1886 (Academy of American Poets). During her life, many classic poets served as an inspiration for Emily, and the specific field of literature that allured the woman was English poetry.

After her death, Dickinson’s poetry was printed in two volumes. The initial volume was released in 1890, and the final in 1955 (Academy of American Poets). There are currently only ten recognized publications of Emily Dickinson, while the estimated number of works during her lifetime is 1,800 (Academy of American Poets). The reason behind such a minuscule quantity of works is that while the poet sent her works in letters to her acquaintances, she ostensibly retained the majority for herself. As a result, she was not interested in publishing her poetry since she was committed to her own interests.

The poet was born and raised in Amherst, Massachusetts, in a wealthy family of a local politician, a Yale graduate, and a prominent lawyer. As a member of the Whig party, the woman’s father, Edward Dickinson, was a widely recognized attorney (Dickinson and Bianchi 36). Moreover, Emily Dickinson made the decision to limit her interpersonal contact from a young age. The woman made the decision in her late twenties to spend a significant part of her time in the family house rather than stepping outside (Dickinson and Bianchi 14). She did not do much traveling and valued her friends by how well they could respond to her letters. Lastly, the decision of Dickinson to stay with her family was not due to her close relationship with her parents. The woman characterized her mother as being heartless and frigid (Dickinson and Bianchi 68). Once her mother became bedridden later in life, the poet reportedly began to develop greater compassion for her. She appeared to connect better with her father, although he was rumored to be against female intellectuals (Dickinson and Bianchi 69). This may aid in understanding Dickinson’s decision to keep her extensive library of poems a secret.

Despite not having numerous published works, Emily Dickinson is a renowned poet due to the quality of her writings and her talent. There are several documentaries and films based on her life experience and poetic path. For example, among the recent films that the story of the poet inspired are A Quiet Passion and Wild Nights with Emily (Dickinson & Bianchi, 2021).

Success Is Counted Sweetest

The poem Success is counted sweetest is among the most popular works of Emily Dickinson, rich in literary devices and common literary features. When it comes to the plot, in the poem, Emily Dickinson ponders about success and what it takes to achieve it. The author argues that holding onto anything valuable for too long causes it to lose its worth. Additionally, later in the poem, the author states that for individuals who have never experienced victory or who have been forced to deal with disappointments throughout their existence, achievement represents the most valuable and greatest feeling.

In this sense, the main themes of such poetry are need, achievement, and failure. The author utilizes several instances to illustrate her points on accomplishment. Dickinson draws a parallel between success for different people, illuminating the preciousness of achievement for those who worked hard and those who cannot “tell the definition / So clear of victory” (Dickinson 8). Thus, individuals that encounter setbacks or disappointments in life respect and cherish them. The point of view in her poem, Emily Dickinson, makes the case that those who possess the least of it love it most. Prosperity is paradoxical in this way since the more accomplished someone is, the less they value it, and the reverse is additionally true. In this way, the poem has both an aspirational and depressing tone.

As for the literary devices, in the given poem, the first stanza shows the successful and evident use of metaphor. A metaphor employed in the stanza is a figure of speech that conveys a comparison of two items with dissimilar natures. For instance, sweet success is compared to nectar, and in this sense, the author argues that “To comprehend a nectar / Requires sorest need” (Dickinson 4). Nectar, in this context, refers to the pleasure of success and what it takes to achieve it. Another literary device used in the second stanza of the poem Success Is Counted Sweetest is imagery. For instance, in order to catch the attention of the audience, the poet narrates, “Not one of all the purple Host / Who took the Flag today,” illustrating the visual and tactile imagery, employing color and movement, respectively (Dickinson 6). Lastly, “The distant strains of triumph / Burst agonized and clear!” illustrates the use of auditory imagery, emphasizing the noise for the audience (Dickinson 12). Thus, the imagery was necessary for the author to help the audience understand concepts involving all sensory experiences.

Finally, Dickinson employed symbolism to allude to specific personas. The process of employing symbols to represent concepts and traits by assigning them with symbolic interpretations separate from the actual literal definitions is known as symbolism. For instance, in the second stanza, “the purple Host” alludes to the royal army and royalty (Dickinson 5). The purple host symbolizes the royal army, which additionally stands for the Northern troops and individuals who view winning as an easy task. Additionally, nectar in the first stanza might allude to not only triumph and success but opulence as well.

“ Hope” Is the Thing with Feathers

“Hope” Is the Thing with Feathers is another poem by Emily Dickinson that serves as an inspiring and calming piece. In the plot, Dickinson likens hope to a brave and independent bird that performs its music in any condition. This creature, similar to a quiet friend, keeps encouraging the heart to keep faith in the face of challenges. Its melody aids the recovery of perceptions in souls in despair. Dickinson conveys the idea that faith is unfailing, unending, and brilliant. The author explains how hope acts as a shining beacon amid that storm by contrasting human tragedy with the weather conditions. At the end of the poem, Dickinson depicts her personal awful situation and resilience. The woman claims that having hope enabled her to go over her life’s challenges. Thus, resilience and the notion that there is a constant promise are among the piece’s central themes. There is always a ray of optimism, despite the hardest and saddest of circumstances. Everyone has a voice that is audible in any weather.

Moreover, the tone of the poem is quite gracious and grateful for both the challenges and strength to persevere. The author’s perspective toward the topic is optimistic, which she endeavors to project onto others. The narrator in this piece talks about how optimism “perches in the soul” and persists with singing, despite the enormous obstacles (Dickinson 2). Therefore, the point of view of the author is that no matter what difficulties the person faces, there should always be hope that will navigate the person.

As for the literary devices, the first method used is the application of metaphor. In the first stanza, the author claims that “Hope” is the thing with feathers – / That perches the soul – / And sings the tune without the words – / And never stops – at all.” (Dickinson 4). Here, the author successfully likened hope to a bird, illustrating how it sings and bolsters a man’s soul. From here, one can see another instance of the literary device, such as personification. It is the process of giving human traits or features to an inanimate item. In the first stanza, the bird can be perceived as a friend or a preacher who never quits teaching and supporting. In order to provide the men with inner strength, it whispers its quiet melody into their hearts. In this sense, Emily Dickinson humanized hope in her poetry.

Moreover, Emily Dickinson used imagery to fill the poem with the necessary details to allow the audience to relate to the piece and feel the implied emotions. The imagery was employed to aid in their ability to see the reported items in their minds. Among the examples of tactile imagery is the weather, which is illustrated in the last stanza through temperature: “I’ve heard it in the chilliest land” (Dickinson 10). Another instance of tactile imagery is “That could abash the little Bird / That kept so many warm.” Lastly, symbolism is the final literary device, where “the chillest land” represents challenges through difficult times during which there is yet hope (Dickinson 9). Thus, it was employed to highlight the enormous influence that hope has on people’s lives.

I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed

The last poem of Emily Dickinson is I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed, which emphasizes the connection between a human and nature. The plot of the poem revolves around the perceptions and elated mood of the author, who narrates about the insects who additionally become drunken by the summer days and alive nature. In this sense, nature is the primary topic of the poem, which is preceded by the imagery of booze and inebriation. Moreover, the tone of the poem is ecstatic since the work by Emily Dickinson is about becoming fully intoxicated, not with alcohol, but rather with life. The narrator of the verse envisions drinking so intensely and joyfully from humanity’s greatest beauty on a magnificent warmer months morning that many angels rush to their homes to see the author’s joyful actions. Therefore, with the setting in a rural area on a summer day, the author perceives life as joyful during warmer months.

As for the literary devices, the first one is a metaphor. The first metaphor is a comparison of happiness to drunken euphoria in nature, which is seen in the first line, “I taste a liquor never brewed,” which alludes that this is not real alcohol (Dickinson 1). Another example is when Dickinson draws a parallel between a flower and a pub inside this context “When “Landlords” turn the drunken Bee / Out of the Foxglove’s door” (Dickinson 10). In this sense, the author additionally uses personification since she gives bees and butterflies human traits of being drunk and thrown out of the tavern.

Furthermore, Dickinson uses hyperbole throughout the entire poem. The main hyperbole is that the bees and butterflies are so addicted to nature and warmth that they become intoxicated, “When Butterflies – renounce their “drams” – I shall but drink the more” (Dickinson 12). Thus, hyperbole allows the audience to see how affected and thrilled they are by the environment.

Hence, Emily Dickinson can be perceived as a talented poet for many reasons due to her inspiring works. While examining and reading her poems of Dickinson attentively, I could not but admire her skillful use of literary devices that make the pieces sound sophisticated and full of life. I liked the poems of Emily Dickinson because she did not incorporate complicated language or verse forms. After millennia, the works of the famous poet can still be understood without a problem. Moreover, I noticed that the poems have overarching themes, such as resilience, aspirations, and appreciation. The poet implements similar approaches to her writing and strives to instill hope and happiness in the readers. While reading the verses of Dickinson, I felt inspired and grateful. However, the works of Emily Dickinson did not remind me of any other poet, and I perceive the poet’s writing as unique, which proves her pure talent. Emily Dickinson had the skill of writing simple poetry to which people could relate. While many poets of her time had quite pompous works that exuded a sense of grandeur, for the most part, they were merely sophisticated words. In the case of Dickinson’s works, they are filled with a wide array of true emotions, including hope, happiness, grief, sorrow, and others.

Academy of American Poets. Emily Dickinson . Academy of American Poets, n.d. Web.

Dickinson, Emily. Hope Is the Thing with Feathers: Poems of Emily Dickinson . United States, Gibbs Smith, 2019.

Dickinson, Emily, and Bianchi, Martha Dickinson. Life and Letters of Emily Dickinson . United Kingdom, West Margin Press, 2021.

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Emily Dickinson's Biography 

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Works Cited:

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• United States Department of Justice. (2021, September). Capital Punishment. https://www.justice.gov/usao/justice-101/capital-punishment

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Biography of Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson’s life has always fascinated people, even before she was famous for her poetry. She was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, a small farming village, on December 10, 1830, to Edward and Emily Norcross Dickinson. Edward Dickinson was a well-respected lawyer and politician, descended from a prominent Amherst family; his father was a founder of Amherst College, where Edward was treasurer.

Emily was the middle child, and was very close to her brother, Austin, and sister, Lavinia. Emily spent almost all of her life in her parents’ home in Amherst, with the exception of the year she spent in boarding school—she left ostensibly because of illness, although it is more likely that it was homesickness. Emily was encouraged to get a good education, although Edward Dickinson had conservative views on the place of women, and did not want her to appear too literary.

When Emily returned from boarding school, she was very active socially, and was considered well-liked and attractive. In her late twenties, though, she suddenly cut herself all from all society, never leaving her family’s home, and started ferociously writing poetry. Although there is a long-standing myth that the catalyst for this was her falling in love with a man who rejected her, it is more likely that it was a combination of several factors.

Austin Dickinson married Emily’s very close friend, Susan Gilbert, but the marriage soon became an unhappy one, and Emily’s friendship with Susan eventually dissolved because of it. In addition, in late 1855, Emily’s mother fell ill with an undiagnosed illness, and from then until her death in 1882, she was essentially bedridden, and Emily and Lavinia had to devote a great deal of time to caring for her. This was especially taxing on Emily, who found all domestic chores stifling, and who was not very close to her mother. Finally, between 1851 and 1854, as many as thirty-three young acquaintances of Emily’s died, including her good friend and cousin, Emily Lavinia Norcross.

Emily began to dress only in white, and would see no one but her family, meeting visitors only through screens or behind doors. She wrote prolifically, writing almost 1800 poems, but her genius was never recognized during her lifetime. She published only seven poems while alive, all anonymously, and all heavily edited. Only after her death from kidney disease in 1886 did her sister find her poems. Recognizing their genius, she convinced her brother’s mistress, Mabel Loomis Todd, to help her publish them. The first book was published in 1890, and met with great success.

Study Guides on Works by Emily Dickinson

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Emily Dickinson's Collected Poems Emily Dickinson

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This Is My Letter to the World Emily Dickinson

"This Is My Letter to the World" is a poem by American poet Emily Dickinson, dealing with themes of isolation, nature, and social judgment. It was written in 1862 and published in 1890. Dickinson's poetry was not widely known during her lifetime....

Wild Nights — Wild Nights! Emily Dickinson

"Wild nights - Wild nights!" is a three-stanza poem by Emily Dickinson, composed in 1861 and published in 1891 as part of the second posthumous collection of her writing. Dickinson never titled her poems, so they are commonly referred to by their...

10 Emily Dickinson Facts

1. her family home is a museum.

Samuel Dickinson, Emily Dickinson's grandfather, had the family home built in the 19th century. It was a large mansion in the center of Amherst that became the Dickinson family home for over a century before it was sold. In 1965 Amherst College bought the homestead. In 2003 it formally became the Emily Dickinson Museum along with the home next door that belonged to Emily's niece.

2. Her father was a United States Senator.

Emily Dickinson was born into a privileged life in Amherst, Massachusetts. Edward Dickinson was a well-regarded lawyer from the Whig party. After graduating from Yale and then the Northampton Law School he served as the treasurer of Amherst College. He served four non-consecutive terms on both the Massachusetts House of Representatives, the Massachusetts Senate, and the United States Congress.

3. Only ten of her poems were published during her lifetime.

Emily Dickinson kept the majority of her work to herself. Only after her death did her sister discover collections of poetry that Dickinson had compiled and refined during her lifetime. She shared her poetry during her life in written correspondence with friends, and occasionally asked for guidance from literary advisors such as Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Poems that were published during her lifetime were mainly done so anonymously or without her consent.

4. The Dickinson family were devout Calvinists.

The essence of evangelical Calvinism is that humans are born as sinners and must be saved with conversion. The poet never underwent a Calvinist conversion, but seems to have been significantly influenced by the tenants of the faith. While she was drawn to Protestant dogma and Transcendentalism Dickinson never stopped believing in the immortal soul.

5. Botany was a passion in her early years.

While at the Amherst Academy Dickinson's teachers recognized her talent for composition, but were also impressed with her assemblage of a large herbarium. Dickinson excelled in Latin and created a meticulous collection of of pressed plants that were identified by their accurate Latin names.

6. She was incredibly reclusive.

From an early age Emily Dickinson chose to restrict her social engagements. In her late twenties she chose to stay within her family home for the vast majority of the time instead of venturing out into the world around her. She rarely travelled and based her perceptions of her friends on their ability to write a letter back to her.

7. Several mysterious love affairs may have taken place.

Despite her reclusive lifestyle Dickinson is believed to have had some love affairs. These affairs appear to have been brief but extremely impactful. For example, Dickinson was once seen sitting on the lap of her father's friend Judge Otis Lord. Little more is known about the duration of their physical experiences together, but she carried on letter writing correspondence with him until his death many years later.

8. She had a strained relationship with both of her parents.

Dickinson chose never to move out of her family home, but it wasn't because she got along so well with her parents. She described her mother as cold and unloving. Later in her life when her mother fell ill Dickinson apparently did begin to feel more affection for her. She seemed more amicable with her father, but he was said to have been unsupportive of female scholars. This might explain why Dickinson chose never to reveal her large collection of poetry.

9. Her work was initially criticized for its unique take on grammar.

Dickinson truly invented a unique style with her poetry that disregarded many common literary rules. She experimented with capitalization and allowed sentences to run on. Her work was inspired by the rhythmic devices of religious psalms, but she commonly interspersed her own creative pauses within the stanzas. Despite her cavalier approach to grammar Dickinson's poems have gone on to become regarded as unique literary masterpieces.

10. She suffered from unspecified health problems.

Emily Dickinson's reclusive behavior makes it difficult to determine what exactly she suffered from. Historians have wondered if she might have had epilepsy like one of her nephews. She certainly was affected by depression and anxiety disorders which made her prefer to stay indoors and away from society. Later in her life Dickinson began to suffer from pain in her eyes and sensitivity to light. She died at just 55 due to a stroke.

Emily Dickinson’s Love Life

“wild nights – wild nights were i with thee wild nights should be our luxury”  – from fr269.

E mily Dickinson never married, but because her canon includes magnificent love poems, questions concerning her love life have intrigued readers since her first publication in the 1890s. Speculation about whom she may have loved has filled and continues to fill volumes.  Her girlhood relationships, her “Master Letters,” and her correspondence with Judge Otis Lord form the backbone of these discussions.

A draft of a letter from Emily to the mysterious “Master”

Dickinson’s school days and young adulthood included several significant male friends, among them Benjamin Newton, a law student in her father’s office; Henry Vaughn Emmons, an Amherst College student; and George Gould, an Amherst College classmate of the poet’s brother Austin.  Early Dickinson biographers identified Gould as a suitor who may have been briefly engaged to the poet in the 1850s, and recent scholarship has shed new light on the theory (Andrews, pp. 334-335).  Her female friendships, notably with schoolmate and later sister-in-law Susan Huntington Gilbert and with mutual friend Catherine Scott Turner Anthon, have also interested Dickinson biographers, who argue whether these friendships represent typical nineteenth-century girlhood friendships or more intensely sexual and romantic relationships.

Found among Emily Dickinson’s papers shortly after her death, drafts of three letters to an unidentified “Master” provide a source of intrigue, although there is no evidence to confirm that finished versions of the letters were ever sent.  Written during the poet’s most productive period, the letters reveal passionate yet changing feelings toward the recipient.  The first, dated to spring 1858, begins “Dear Master / I am ill”; the second, dated to early 1861, starts with “Oh, did I offend it”; and the third, dated to summer 1861, opens with “Master / If you saw a bullet hit a bird” (date attributions made by R.W. Franklin).

While the letters are remarkable examples of Dickinson’s exceptional power with words, they are studied as much to attempt identification of the intended recipient as for their literary mastery.  The lengthy list of proposed candidates includes Samuel Bowles, family friend, newspaper editor and publisher; William Smith Clark, a scientist and educator based in Amherst; Charles Wadsworth, a minister whom Dickinson heard preach in Philadelphia; as well as George Gould and Susan Dickinson.  Others have posited that the letters are simply literary exercises or that the author is attempting to resolve an internal crisis.  So much about Dickinson’s life remains unknown that an entirely different or as-yet unknown candidate may yet be revealed. Unless a contemporary account is discovered that clearly identifies the “Master,” the poet’s public will remain in suspense.

Judge Otis Phillips Lord, a Dickinson love interest

A romantic relationship late in the poet’s life with Judge Otis Phillips Lord is supported in Dickinson’s correspondence with him as well as in family references.  Lord (1812-1884) was a close friend of Edward Dickinson , the poet’s father, with whom he shared conservative political views.  Lord and his wife Elizabeth were familiar guests in the Dickinson household.  In 1859 Lord was appointed to the Massachusetts Superior Court and later served on the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts (1875-1882).  His relationship with the poet developed after the death of Elizabeth Lord in 1877.  Only fifteen manuscripts in Dickinson’s hand survive from their correspondence, most in draft or fragmentary form.  Some passages seem to suggest that Dickinson and Lord contemplated marrying.  The question of whether the reclusive poet would have consented to move to Lord’s home in Salem, Massachusetts, was mooted by Lord’s decline in health.  He died in 1884, two years before Emily Dickinson.

Whatever the reality of Dickinson’s personal experiences, her poetry explores the complexities and passions of human relationships with language that is as evocative and compelling as her writings on spirituality, death, and nature.

Further Reading:

For a complete text of the Master letters, see  The Master Letters of Emily Dickinson , ed.R.W. Franklin (Amherst, Mass.:  Amherst College Press, 1986).

For an account of the discovery of Dickinson’s letters to Judge Lord, see Millicent Todd Bingham’s  Emily Dickinson:  A Revelation ( New York: Harper and Bros, 1954)

Most biographies discuss the “Master” letters and Lord relationship in some detail.  Significant discussions of the Master letters include those in Richard B. Sewall’s  The Life of Emily Dickinson ( New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1974); Cynthia G. Wolff’s  Emily Dickinson ( New York: Knopf, 1986); and Alfred Habegger’s  My Wars Are Laid Away in Books: The Life of Emily Dickinson ( New York: Random House, 2001).

In addition, several works address more directly specific individuals and their qualifications for “Master.”  Among them are

• Andrews, Carol Damon. “Thinking Musically, Writing Expectantly:  New Biographical Information about Emily Dickinson.”  The New England Quarterly , Vol. LXXXI, no. 2 (June 2008) 330-340.  Reintroduces the possibility of George Gould as the “Master” candidate.
• Jones, Ruth Owen. “’Neighbor – and friend – and Bridegroom –‘” William Smith Clark as Emily Dickinson’s Master Figure.”  The Emily Dickinson Journal  11.2 (2002) 48-85.
• Mamunes, George.    “So has a Daisy vanished”:  Emily Dickinson and Tuberculosis.  McFarland, 2007.  Proposes Benjamin Franklin Newton as Master.
• Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson’s Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson . Ed. Ellen Louise Hart and Martha Nell Smith. Paris Press, 1998.   Addresses the poet’s relationship with Susan Dickinson.
• Patterson, Rebecca.  The Riddle of Emily Dickinson .  Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1951.  Posits Kate Anthon as a love interest.

For Dickinson’s thoughts on marriage, Judith Farr’s “Emily Dickinson and Marriage: ‘the Etruscan Experiment'” in Reading Emily Dickinson’s Letters: Critical Essays (Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 2009).