The Poetry of Emily Dickinson

Written by Emily Dickinson

Narrated by Ghizela Rowe and Patricia Rodriguez

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born in 1830 in Amherst Massachusetts. Rightly regarded as a major American poet, her life was sheltered, introverted, and reclusive. Despite writing over 1800 poems, only a dozen or so were published during her lifetime. Her structures and wordings are at times difficult to get to grips with, though recurring themes of religion and death certainly shadow many of her works. At her death is 1886, it is likely her work might have been lost had it not been for a publication by her sister. Indeed it was only in the 1950s that a complete and unedited collection of her works was published. In the ensuing half century she has gradually climbed into the pantheon of Greats.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Copyright Group
• Release date: Jan 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781780002163

Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) was an American poet. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, Dickinson was raised in a prominent family of lawyers and politicians alongside two siblings. For seven years, she studied at Amherst Academy, excelling in English, classics, and the sciences. Dickinson suffered from melancholy and poor health from a young age, taking several breaks from school to stay with family in Boston. After graduation, Dickinson enrolled at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, withdrawing ten months later to return home to Amherst. Through her friend Benjamin Franklin Newton, she was introduced to the poetry of William Wordsworth and Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose influence would prove profound as she embarked on a literary life of her own. Despite her status as one of the greatest American poets of the nineteenth century, Dickinson published only ten poems and one letter during her lifetime, only a sampling of nearly two thousand poems discovered after her death. Cast as an eccentric by contemporaries and later critics alike, Dickinson was an enigmatic figure whose experimental forms and extensive use of symbols have inspired generations of readers and poets. By the 1870s, following the death of her father, Dickinson had largely withdrawn from public life. Spending much of her time caring for her ailing mother, she still managed to write poems and send letters to friends and family. In 1886, following her death, Dickinson’s younger sister Lavinia discovered her collection of poems and began the long and arduous process of bringing them to print.

Reviews for The Poetry of Emily Dickinson

[Chris Campbell · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I would marry her if she were still here today!