Emily

Dickinson

1830-1886

Dickinson, Emily Elizabeth

(1830-1886)

• Born in Amherst, Massachusetts
• From 1840 to 1847 she attended the

Amherst Academy, and from 1847 to 1848

she studied at the Mount Holyoke Female

Seminary (now Mount Holyoke College)

• a trip to Washington, D.C., in the late 1850s
• a few trips to Boston for eye treatments
• Dickinson lived in the same house on Main

Street from 1855 until her death

• she published only about 10 of her nearly

2,000 poems

• Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by Thomas

Wentworth Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd,

was published in 1890

Was she extremely reclusive?
• the play The Belle of Amherst (1976)
• entertained guests at her home and at the

home of her brother and sister-in-law

• a voluminous correspondence with friends,

family; a spiritual mentor

• Dickinson’s sister-in-law, Susan Dickinson

1998 Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson’s

Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson

Literary influences

• the Bible
• William Shakespeare, John Milton,

Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Barrett
Browning, George Eliot, and Thomas
Carlyle

• Barrett Browning, Scottish poet

Robert Browning, John Keats and
George Herbert

Literary devices:

• She frequently employed off-rhymes:

ocean with noon and seam with swim

• Defamiliarization, using common

language/words in startling ways

• Intense metaphors
• Ellipsis - the omission of a word or

phrase necessary for a complete

syntactic construction but not

necessary for understanding

the visual aspects of her

poetry

• arranged and broke lines of verse in

highly unusual ways to underscore
meaning

• created extravagantly shaped letters

of the alphabet to emphasize or play
with a poem’s sense

• incorporated cutouts from novels,

magazines, and even the Bible to
augment her own use of language

self-publication

• She “published” by sending out at

least one-third of her poems in the
more than 1,000 letters she wrote to
at least 100 different correspondents

• She bound about 800 of her poems

into 40 manuscript books/bundles

185

“Faith” is a fine invention

For gentlemen who see,
But Microscopes are
prudent
In an emergency!

c.
1860

280

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,

And Mourners to and fro

Kept treading — treading — till it

seemed

That Sense was breaking through —

And when they all were seated,

A Service, like a Drum —

Kept beating — beating — till I thought

My Mind was going numb —

And then I heard them lift a Box

And creak across my Soul

With those same Boots of Lead, again,

Then Space — began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell,

And Being, but an Ear,

And I, and Silence, some strange Race

Wrecked, solitary, here —

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,

And I dropped down, and down —

And hit a World, at every plunge,

And Finished knowing — then —

c. 1861

328

A Bird came down the Walk —

He did not know I saw —

He bit an Angleworm in halves

And ate the fellow, raw,

And then he drank a Dew

From a convenient Grass —

And then hopped sidewise to the Wall

To let a Beetle pass —

He glanced with rapid eyes

That hurried all around —

They looked like frightened Beads, I

thought —

He stirred his Velvet Head

Like one in danger, Cautious,

I offered him a Crumb

And he unrolled his feathers

And rowed him softer home —

Than Oars divide the Ocean,

Too silver for a seam —

Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon

Leap, plashless as they swim.

c. 1862

52

0

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—

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—

And He— He followed— close behind—

I felt his Silver Heel

Upon my Ankle— Then my Shoes

Would overflow with Pearl—

Until We met the Solid Town—

No One He seemed to know—

And bowing— with a Mighty look—

At me— The Sea withdrew—

c. 1862

71

2

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—

c. 1863

1129

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—

Success in Circuit lies

Too bright for our infirm Delight

The Truth’s superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children

eased

With explanation kind

The Truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind—

c. 1868

Sample of Emily Dickinson's

handwriting, poem 322

Edited versions of Dickinson’s

poems often differ from the

manuscript in punctuation and

capitalization, for example:

There came a day at summer’s

full

Entirely for me;

I thought that such were for the

saints,

Where revelations be.

The sun, as common, went

abroad,

The flowers, accustomed, blew,

As if no soul the solstice passed

That maketh all things new.