Emily Dickinson 18301886

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Emily Dickinson (18301886)

• zhou

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Important people

• William Austin Dickinson
• Susan Gilbert (sister in law)
• Lavinia (sister)
• Mabel Todd (brothers mistress)
• Thomas Wentworth Higginson
• Charles Wadsworth

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Susan Gilbert Dickinson
Lavinia Norcross Dickinson
Sister of Blood
Sister of Heart
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Two Very Influential Men

• In Emily's entire life, she took one trip to
  Philadelphia (due to eye problems), one to
  Washington, and a few trips to Boston.
• Fortunately, during those rare journeys Emily met
  two very influential men that would be sources of
  inspiration and guidance Charles Wadsworth and
  Thomas Wentworth Higginson.

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Charles Wadsworth Source of Inspiration

• Dickinsons emotional life remains mysterious,
  despite much speculation about a possible
  disappointed love affair.
• One possible candidate is Reverend Charles
  Wadsworth, with whom she corresponded.
• Minister of the Arch Street Presbyterian Church
  in Philadelphia.

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Thomas Wentworth Higginson

• Editor and Colonel
• Dickinson initiated a correspondence with him in
  April 1862 that turned into one of the mainstays
  of her writing life.
• He corresponded with Emily Dickinson for nearly
  25 years.

(1823-1911)
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Higginson

• Higginson visited her in 1870 and later told of
  meeting her in the dark cool parlor A step like
  a pattering(??????) childs in the entry and in
  glided a little plain woman with two smooth bands
  of reddish hair and a face with no good feature

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• She came to me with two white day lilies(?????),
  which she put in a childlike way into my hand
  and said, These are my introduction, in a soft,
  frightened, breathless, childlike voiceand added
  under her breath, Forgive me if I am frightened
  I never see strangers and hardly know what to
  saybut she talked soon and thenthforth
  continuously

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Mabel Todd

• She has not been outside of her own house in
  fifteen years, except once to see a new church,
  when she crept out at night, and viewed it by
  moonlight. No one who calls upon her mother and
  sister ever see her, but she allows little
  children once in a great while, and one at a
  time, to come in, when she gives them cake or
  candy, or some nicety, for she is very fond of
  little ones. But more often she lets down the
  sweetmeat by a string, out of a window, to them.
  She dresses wholly in white, and her mind is said
  to be perfectly wonderful. She writes finely, but
  no one ever sees her. Mabel Todd

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All the Dickinsons struck people as unusual, but
Emily was identified as the climax of all the
family oddity

• Several months before her death in 1882, Mrs.
  Dickinson read some of her daughters poetry to
  Mabel Todd, who found them full of power. Soon
  Mabel Todd and Dickinson had established a very
  pleasant friendship without meeting (Mabel Todd
  saw Dickinson once, in her coffin), and Mabel
  Todd had decided that even though her neighbor
  reminded her of Dickenss Miss Havisham in Great
  Expectations, this Amherst eccentric was in many
  respects a genius.

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• Thomas Wentworth Higginson Letter to a young
  Contributor appeared in the April 1862 Atlantic
  Monthly, she found in the essay the assurance
  that every editor is always hungering and
  thirsting after novelties, eager for the
  privilege of bringing forward a new genius.

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Letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson

• mr higginson,
• Are you too deeply occupied to say if my Verse is
  alive?
• The Mind is so near itselfit cannot see,
  distinctlyand I have none to ask
• Should you think it breathedand had you the
  leisure to tell me, I should feel quick
  gratitude
• If I make the mistakethat you dared to tell
  mewould give me sincere honortoward you

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• Publication -- is the Auction
• Of the Mind of Man --
• Poverty -- be justifying
• For so foul a thing
• (Poem No. 709)

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441

• This is my letter to the World
• That never wrote to Me
• The simple News that Nature told
• With tender Majesty
•  
•  Her Message is committed
• To Hands I cannot see
• For love of HerSweetcountrymen
• Judge tenderlyof Me

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303

• The Soul selects her own Society
• Thenshuts the Door
• To her divine Majority(????????)
• Present no more
• ?????????,
• ??,????
• ??????
• ?????

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• Unmovedshe notes the Chariotspausing
• At her low Gate
• Unmovedan Emperor be kneeling
• Upon her Mat
• ????,??,??????
• ????
• ????,??????
• ????

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• Ive known herfrom an ample nation
• Choose One
• Thenclose the Valves of her attention
• Like Stone
• ????,??????????
• ?????
• ??,???????
• ?????
• (???)

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Themes of Dickinsons Poetry

• Life Death (the largest portion)
• Love (some are rather bold, even erotic)
• Nature (about 300 poems)
• Time Eternity

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547

• Ive seen a Dying Eye
• Run round and round a Room
• In search of Somethingas it seemed
• Then Cloudier become
• And thenobscure with Fog
• And thenbe soldered(??) down
• Without disclosing what it be
• Twere blessed to have seen

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449

• I died for Beautybut was scarce
• Adjusted in the tomb
• When One who died for Truth, was lain
• In an adjoining Room

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• He questioned softly Why I failed?
• For Beauty, I replied
• And Ifor TruthThemself are One
• We Bretheren, are, He said
•  
• And so, as Kinsmen, met a Night
• We talked between the Rooms
• Until the Moss had reached our lips
• And covered upour names

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712

• Because I could not stop for Death
• He kindly stopped for me
• The Carriage held but just Ourselves
• And Immortality.
•  
•  We slowly droveHe knew no haste
• And I had put away
• My labor and my leisure too,
• For His Civility

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• We passed the School, where Children strove
• At Recessin the Ring
• We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain
• We passed the Setting Sun
•  
• Or ratherHe passed Us
• The Dews drew quivering and chill
• For only Gossamer(???,??), my Gown
• My Tippet(??)only Tulle(??)

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• We paused before a House that seemed
• A Swelling of the Ground
• The Roof was scarcely visible
• The Cornicein the Ground
•  
• Since thentis Centuriesand yet
• Feels shorter than the Day
• I first surmised the Horses Heads
• Were toward Eternity

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Love lyrics, 249

• Wild NightsWild Nights!
• Were I with thee
• Wild Nights should be
• Our luxury!
• ????,????! ????????, ?????? ?????!

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• Futilethe Winds
• To a Heart in port
• Done with the Compass
• Done with the Chart!
• ?,????---- ?,????---- ??,??, ??,??!

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• Rowing in Eden
• Ah, the Sea!
• Might I but moorTonight
• In Thee!
• ??????---- ?,?! ????,??, ??????!

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Love Lyrics

• I started Early Took my Dog
• And visited the Sea
• The Mermaids in the Basement
• Came out to look at me
• And Frigates(??)-- in the Upper Floor
• Extended Hempen(??) Hands
• Presuming Me to be a Mouse
• Aground upon the Sands

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• But no Man moved Me -- till the Tide
• Went past my simple Shoe --
• And past my Apron -- and my Belt --
• And past my Bodice -- too --
• And made as He would eat me up --
• As wholly as a Dew
• Upon a Dandelion's Sleeve --
• And then -- I started -- too --

Poem No. 520
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919

• If I can stop one Heart from breaking
• I shall not live in vain
• If I can ease one Life the Aching
• Or cool one Pain 
• Or help one fainting Robin
• Unto his Nest again
• I shall not live in Vain.

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• Apparently with no surprise
• To any happy Flower
• The Frost beheads it at its play --
• In accidental power --
• The blonde Assassin passes on --
• The Sun proceeds unmoved
• To measure off another Day
• For an Approving God.
• (Poem No. 1624

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• 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!??,????,????!/????,??????/???
  ??,??????/??????!
• (Poem No. 288)

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• Nobody knows this little Rose --
• It might a pilgrim be
• Did I not take it from the ways
• And lift it up to thee.
• ????????/?????????/????,????
• Only a Bee will miss it --
• Only a Butterfly,
• Hastening from far journey --
• On its breast to lie --
• Only a Bird will wonder --
• Only a Breeze will sigh --
• Ah Little Rose -- how easy
• For such as thee to die!
• (Poem No. 35)

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97

• To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
• One clover and a bee,
• And revery.
• Revery alone will do,
• If bees are few.

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• SUCCESS is counted sweetest
• By those who neer succeed.
• To comprehend a nectar
• Requires sorest need.
•   
• Not one of all the purple host
• Who took the flag to-day
• Can tell the definition,
• So clear, of victory,
•   

• As he, defeated, dying,
• On whose forbidden ear
• The distant strains of triumph
• Break, agonized and clear.

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Unique Features

• Extensive uses of dashes
• (vary in length)
• Optional employments of capital letters
• Derailment of the proper grammar (full of
  grammatically wrong structures)
• Fresh Images

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• ??????,????????,?????????,????????,????????
  ?,????????,??????????????????????,????,???
  ????????????? ??????????,??????????
  ??????????????????,?????,????????,??????
  purple ?????host ??--??? purple
  host ????,??? ??,????????,?????
  ???????,?????Not one of all ?????,?????????????,??
  ??????????,???????????,??????????????,??????????,?
  ?????????? ??????,??????,?????????,??????,???
  ?????,??????,????,?????????,??????Not one of
  all?????? ????,???? ????,?????
  ?????????????,??????????,??????,?????????????????,
  ??????????,?????????????,??????,?????????,????,??
  ???????agonize????? ??,??????????,???????
  ??,???????,??????????,?????,????????????????????
  ??????,????????????,?????????????????,????????????
  ,???????????? ??????????????????????,????????????
  ???????????????????????,???????????,????????triump
  h ???,????????????,???????,?????????,??????triumph
  ??????????? ?????,?????????,?????????????????
  ??????????????,???????????!

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1732

• My life closed twice before its close
• It yet remains to see
• If Immortality unveil
• A third event to me,
• So huge, so hopeless to conceive
• As these that twice befel.
• Parting is all we know of heaven,
• And all we need of hell.

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1255

• Longing is like the Seed
• That wrestles in the Ground,
• Believing if it intercede
• It shall at length be found.
• The Hour, and the Clime
• Each Circumstance unknown,
• What Constancy must be achieved
• Before it see the Sun!

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829

• Ample make this Bed
• Make this Bed with Awe
• In it wait till Judgment break
• Excellent and Fair.
• Be its Mattress straight
• Be its Pillow round
• Let no Sunrise yellow noise
• Interrupt this Ground--

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754

• My Life had stood a Loaded Gun
• In Corners till a Day
• The Owner passed identified
• And carried Me away
• And now We roam in Sovereign Woods
• And now We hunt the Doe
• And every time I speak for Him
• The Mountains straight reply

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• And do I smile, such cordial light
• Upon the Valley glow
• It is as a Vesuvian face
• Had let its pleasure through
• And when at Night Our good Day done
• I guard My Masters Head
• Tis better than the Eider-Ducks
• Deep Pillow to have shared

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• To for of his Im deadly for
• None stir the second time
• On whom I lay a Yellow Eye
• Or an emphatic Thumb
• Though I than He may longer live
• He longer must than I
• For I have but the power to kill,
• Without the power to die

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305

• The difference between Despair
• And Fear is like the One
• Between the instant of a Wreck
• And when the Wreck has been
• The Mind is smooth no Motion
• Contented as the Eye
• Upon the Forehead of a Bust
• That knows it cannot see

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