Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson lived in an era of Naturalism and Realism
(1855-1910). She lived
in a period of The Civil War and the Frontier. She was
affected by her life and
the era she lived in. She also had many deaths in
her family and that’s part
of the reason that she was very morbid and wrote
about death. Emily Dickinson
grew up in Amherst, Massachusetts in the
nineteenth century. As a child she was
brought up into the Puritan way of
life. She was born on December 10, 1830 and
died fifty-six years later. Emily
lived isolated in the house she was born in;
except for the short time she
attended Amherst Academy and Holyoke Female
Seminary. Emily Dickinson
never married and lived on the reliance of her father.
Dickinson was
close to her sister Lavinia and her brother Austin her whole life.
Most
of her family were members of the church, but Emily never wished to
become
one. Her closest friend was her sister-in-law Susan. Susan was Emily's
personal
critic; as long as Emily was writing she asked Susan to look her
poems over.
Emily Dickinson was affected by her life for several reasons.
One of the reasons
was that she was never married, though she went through
many serious
relationships, she never settled down. Another reason that she
was affected by
her life was that her mother was not "emotionally
accessible". She was not
close to her mother and never shared any of her
feelings with her, which most
daughters feel they can. This might have caused
Emily to be very weird and
strange. The Dickinson children were also raised
in the Christian tradition, and
were expected to take up their father’s
religious beliefs and values without
any fighting or arguing. Emily did not
like than she can not chose for herself
her own beliefs and religion. Emily
did not enjoy the popularity and excitement
of the public life, unlike her
father. So she began to pull away from it. In the
presence of strangers Emily
could be shy, silent or even depreciating. Emily
felt that she did not fit in
with her and her father’s religion in Amherst
especially when he father
started to censor the books she read because of their
potential to draw her
away from faith. Emily had no extended exposure to the
world outside of her
hometown. Besides the one trip she took to Philadelphia
(which was only due
to her eye problems) and occasional trips to Washington and
Boston. On
her trip to Philadelphia Emily met Charles Wadsworth, a clergyman,
who became
her "dearest earthly friend". Just like Emily he was also a
solitary, and a
romantic person that Emily could confide in when writing her
poetry. His
religious beliefs also gave Emily a sharp, and often welcome. He was
a very
influential and was a big source of inspiration and guidance. She also
met a
man by the name of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who was also very
influential
to Emily. He advised Dickinson against publishing her poetry, even
though he
saw the creative originality on her poetry. He remained Emily’s"preceptor" for
the rest of her life. But Emily decided against publishing
her poems, and as
a result only seven of her poems were published in her
lifetime (she left
behind over 2,000 poems). Emily Dickinson was affected by her
era. When the
United States Civil War broke out there was a lot of emotional
confusion, and
she began to express this in her poems. Some changes in her
poetry came
directly as a result of the war. Even though she looked inner and
not to the
war for the material in her poetry, the tense atmosphere of the war
years may
have contributed a lot to her writings. After the war she started to
look at
things through a black vale, and began to be very dark and gloomy.
But
probably one of her best poems was written during this periods of
decline. It
was called "A Route of Evanescence". This poem described the
fluttering rise
of a humming bird. This unpredictable rise was also the route
of experience.
Emily’s life started to go down from this point and
nothing good was happening
for her anymore. There were many points in her
life where she was not happy and
actually very few points were she was happy
and satisfied with her life. She
expressed all this in a poem she writes
called "Crumbling in not an
instant’s Act". This poem’s tells how crumbling
does not happen
immediately, but in a gradual process occurring slowly over
time. The idea that
crumbling is progressive is supported when it state
"Dilapidation’s Are
organized Decays". This means that crumbling is a result
of dilapidation,
which is caused by gradual decay. The deterioration that
results is progressive:
one stage of decay leads to the next until crumbling
occurs along and you
can’t even help it. In the poem it used the word "ruin",
which is the best
word for describing both physical and spiritual falling
down. The literal
meaning of the poem is simple, ruin does not happen
suddenly. It has a gradual
process that is a result of gradual decay. Every
type of ruin takes time, even
though one may take more time than others. This
poem describes Emily’s life.
In the beginning, when she was a young
child, living at home, she was unhappy
with her family and social status. And
after turning 30, seldom saw anyone than
her immediate family. And this was
the beginning of her crumbling; She had many
serious eye problems that
throughout her life had to get treatments for it. She
was never married. She
had so many deaths in her family and close friends. So
from here we see her
gradual decay. Emily Dickinson was very morbid and wrote a
lot about death.
Her whole life she lived across the street from a cemetery
which can explain
why most of her poems are associated with death. She did so
also because she
spent the later part of her life mourning of the several deaths
in her family
and of close friends. Her father died in 1874, Samuel Bowles died
in 1878,
J.G. Holland died in 1881, her nephew Gilbert died in 1883 and
both
Charles Wadsworth and her mother died in 1882. Over those five
years, many of
the most influential and precious friendships of Emily’s
passed away and that
gave way to the obsession of death in her poetry. One of
her poems where she
speaks about death is "Because I Could Not Stop for
Death". Here Dickinson
tells a story of a woman who is being taken away by
death. "Because I could
not stop for death- He kindly stopped for me". The
speaker in the poem tells
us that she will not stop for Death but that it
will have to come and get her.
In the end death came and took her away
but it’s pleasant and peaceful. It
talks about her way to heaven and that in
the beginning she wasn’t ready to
die but once it came it wasn’t that bad. I
think that in this poem she is
actually talking about her own death. And that
she was afraid to die but once it
came it wasn’t that bad. On June 14, 1884
Emily’s obsessions and poetic
theory started to come to a stop when she
suffered the first attack f her
terminal illness. Throughout 1865, Emily was
cramped to her bed in her
family’s house where she had lived her entire life,
and, on May 15 1886, Emily
died at the age of 56. One poems that I came in
contact with was called " I
hard a Fly Buzz when I died" and this was one of
many where she spoke about
death. In this poem it talks about a women who is
lying in bed with her family
and friends standing all around waiting for her
to die. And when is t says " I
heard a fly buzz when I died" is the moment
death arrives. And the fly
represents the world being left behind. While the
d\family is waiting, she is
waiting for "the king". This symbolizes some sort
of god that will take her
away. From here we see that the women is distancing
herself from her fear of
death and detachment or attachment of life. As the
women dies, her eyes fail and
she saw nothing. The women’s soul drifted off
into nothingness because there
was no after life for it to travel to. She no
longer cared for materialistic
things; all she wanted to leave behind was
good memories and good thought of
her. The poem represents a typical death
seen from Dickinson’s time, it had
people surrounding the deathbed looking on
and studying the person soul fate. I
think that the woman in the poem is
actually talking about Emily and the
previsions to her death. Emily Dickinson
was considered one of the two most
gifted poets (Walt Witman was the other
one). She was influenced by the writings
of American author Ralph Waldo
Emerson. Some people may think Emily Dickinson
was a morbid person, but
indeed she was only writing about what was going on in
her personal life, and
what was going on in society at those times.
Bibliography
The
World Book Encyclopedia (Volume 5) EMILY DICKINSON USA, Copyright
1987
John Malcolm Brinnin EMILY DICKINSON New York, Copyright 1960 EMILY
DICKINSON
http://www.geocities.com/paris/chateau/2435/j1732.txt