Lecture Seven.pptVIP

Lecture Seven Emily Dickinson Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)? an American lyrical poet, and an obsessively private writer Most important woman poet and the second important poet of the 19th century America only seven of her some 1800 poems were published during her lifetime. Dickinson withdrew from social contact at the age of 23 and devoted herself in secret into writing. life born in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a family well known for educational and political activity educated at Amherst Academy (1834-47) and Mount Holyoke Female Seminary (1847-48) Around 1850 Dickinson started to write poems, first in fairly conventional style, but after ten years of practice she began to give room for experiments. From 1858 she assembled many of her poems in packets of ‘fascicles‘(束), which she bound herself with needle and thread. After the Civil War Dickinson restricted her contacts outside Amherst to exchange of letters, dressed only in white and saw few of the visitors who came to meet her. most of her time she spent in her room Although she lived a secluded life, her letters reveal knowledge of the writings of John Keats, John Ruskin, and Sir Thomas Browne. Her emotional life remains mysterious, despite much speculation about a possible disappointed love affair. Two candidates have been presented: Reverend Charles Wadsworth, with whom she corresponded, and Samuel Bowles, editor of the Springfield Republican, to whom she addressed many poems. After Dickinsons death in 1886, her sister Lavinia brought out her poems. She co-edited three volumes from 1891 to 1896. Despite its editorial imperfections, the first volume became popular. In the early decades of the twentieth century, Martha Dickinson Bianchi, the poets niece, transcribed and published more poems, and in 1945 Bolts Of Melody essentially completed the task of bringing Dickinsons poems to the public. The publication of Thomas H. Johnsons 1955 edition of Emily Dickinsons poems finally gave readers a complete a