The Emily Dickinson Collection

The Emily Dickinson Room, Houghton Library. William Mercer, photographer.

Overview and History

Houghton Library holds the papers of many American writers, including those of the 19th-century Amherst poet Emily Dickinson.

Houghton's Dickinson Collection is the largest in the world. In addition to preserving more than 1,000 poems and some 300 letters in her hand, the library also holds the poet’s writing table and chair , the Dickinson family library including the poet's bible , as well as Dickinson's herbarium .

At the heart of the collection are 40 hand-sewn manuscript books, or fascicles, in which the poet copied her poems. These manuscripts record the variations in word choice Dickinson considered. Unfortunately, these fascicles were disbound by the poet’s earliest editors. None survive as Dickinson left them, although in a few cases the thread used to sew the folded sheets does survive. 

For those interested in how the collection ended up at Harvard, researchers can consult the introduction to the 2006 facsimile edition of Emily Dickinson’s Herbarium .

Emily Dickinson Archive Online

Emily Dickinson Archive provides access to images of nearly all of Emily Dickinson’s extant poetry manuscripts.

A collaborative effort across many institutions, the archive provides readers with images of manuscripts held in multiple libraries and archives, and offers an array of transcriptions of Dickinson’s poems. It also features digital tools that support exploration and scholarship. The site allows users to:

  • browse images of manuscripts by first line, date, or recipient;
  • turn the pages of and zoom into the manuscripts;
  • search the full text of six editions of Dickinson’s poems;
  • browse Emily Dickinson’s Lexicon , a resource indexing Dickinson’s word choices along with their contemporary definitions; and
  • create an account to make notes on images, save transcriptions of poems, and create new editions of her poetry.

Manuscript recipe for Emily Dickinson’s black cake written in pencil on cream-colored and lightly stained paper.

The Dickinson Room

The Dickinson Room is located on the second floor of Houghton Library . It displays family furniture (including the poet's writing table and chair), family portraits, a portion of the family library, and a number of personal belongings closely associated with the poet. The Dickinson Room is included in free public tours of Houghton Library every Friday at 2 p.m. and can be seen at other times by appointment. To request a tour of the room, contact the library . 

Emily Dickinson’s Black Cake 

“2 Butter. / 19 eggs. / 5 pounds Raisins.”

Those are some of poet Emily Dickinson's lesser-known lines.

Dickinson’s manuscript recipe for black cake, included in Houghton's Dickinson Collection, was sent along with a bouquet of flowers to Nellie Sweetser in the summer of 1883.  Read more about the recipe, and watch a video of Houghton staff recreating the cake .

Dickinson-Related Collections at Houghton

The following collections constitute the bulk of Houghton Library's Emily Dickinson Collection:

Emily Dickinson Poems and Letters

  • Emily Dickinson Poems : The fascicles, as well as poems on loose sheets, addressed to Susan Dickinson and other family members. The appendix includes a useful concordance of Johnson numbers, Franklin numbers, and Houghton call numbers. Color digital facsimiles available in open access.
  • Emily Dickinson letters and poems sent to the Austin Dickinson family : Color digital facsimiles of poems available in open access; color digital facsimiles of letters by Emily Dickinson restricted to the Harvard network.
  • Emily Dickinson poems and letters to Maria Whitney : Color digital facsimiles of poems available in open access; color digital facsimiles of letters by Emily Dickinson restricted to the Harvard network.
  • Emily Dickinson letters to Josiah Gilbert Holland and Elizabeth Chapin Holland : Includes some poems. Color digital facsimiles of poems available in open access; color digital facsimiles of letters by Emily Dickinson restricted to the Harvard network.
  • Emily Dickinson Letters to Lucretia Gunn Dickinson Bullard : Complete color digital facsimiles available; access restricted to the Harvard network.
  • Emily Dickinson letters to various correspondents : Color digital facsimiles of poems available in open access; color digital facsimiles of letters by Emily Dickinson restricted to the Harvard network.
  • Emily Dickinson miscellaneous papers : Includes materials that entered the Houghton collections after 1950. Largely letters, but a few manuscripts, and the recipe for black cake. Color digital facsimiles of poems available in open access; color digital facsimiles of letters by Emily Dickinson restricted to the Harvard network.

Sequence 30 of Emily Dickinson’s Herbarium featuring five pressed plant specimens

Because of their extreme fragility, the following items cannot be accessed in the original. All are available digitally, linked to their respective catalog records below.

  • Emily Dickinson. Herbarium, ca. 1839–1846 : Compiled by Dickinson when she was a student at Amherst Academy. Complete color digital facsimile available without access restrictions. Additionally, published in facsimile as Emily Dickinson's Herbarium . Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006. The Herbarium is searchable by both common (e.g. dandelion, lily) and scientific (e.g. Jasminum, Calendula) plant name.
  • Emily Dickinson. Herbarium, [18--] : Unfinished; nothing is known of its history. Complete color digital facsimile available without access restrictions.
  • Botanical specimens received by Emily Dickinson : Pressed botanical specimens sent to Dickinson, most of which are labeled with geographic locations in the Middle East. It is possible that some or all of the labeled specimens were sent to Dickinson by Abby Wood Bliss, a schoolmate from Amherst Academy, who went to the Middle East as a missionary wife in 1855. Complete color digital facsimile available without access restrictions.

Dickinson Family Artifacts and Papers

  • Dickinson family artifacts : Portraits, furniture, jewelry, and household objects, many on display in the Dickinson Room. All objects have been photographed. Color digital facsimiles are available without access restrictions.
  • Dickinson family library : The titles in the Dickinson family library are also listed in HOLLIS and can be browsed using this canned search ; those records should be consulted for fuller bibliographic information than is found in the finding aid. More than half the volumes in this library have been digitized. Color digital facsimiles are available without access restrictions.
  • Dickinson family papers: Some images available; no access restrictions.
  • Dickinson family contracts and correspondence : concerning publication of the works of Emily Dickinson: No images available.

Photographs

  • Dickinson family photographs, ca. 1840-1940 : Some images available; no access restrictions.
  • Reproductions of the Emily Dickinson daguerreotype: Shows the stages of alteration to the Amherst daguerreotype done by Laura Coombs Hills. Some images available; no access restrictions.

Written manuscript, Baffled for just a day or two (first line) Autograph manuscript, signed (1860)

Dickinson Family Circle

  • Mary Adèle Allen correspondence concerning Emily Dickinson : Images available; no access restrictions.
  • Martha Dickinson Bianchi letters to Theodore Longfellow Frothingham :  No images available; no access restrictions.
  • Martha Dickinson Bianchi papers : Some images available; no access restrictions.
  • Martha Dickinson Bianchi publication correspondence : No images available; no access restrictions. 
  • Samuel Bowles letters to Austin and Susan Dickinson : No images available; no access restrictions.
  • Alfred Leete Hampson correspondence concerning Emily Dickinson's papers : No images available; no access restrictions.
  • Thomas Herbert Johnson correspondence with Theodora Van Wagenen Ward, 1950–1958 : No images available; no access restrictions.
  • Theodora Van Wagenen Ward notes and correspondence concerning Emily Dickinson : Some images available; no access restrictions.

Other individual items, such as silhouettes of the Dickinsons , a drawing of Susan Dickinson , a transcript of the evidence given in the Dickinson-Todd trial , and manuscripts by friends of Dickinson such as Thomas Wentworth Higginson can be found through HOLLIS.

  • Virtual Open House Tour of the Dickinson Collection at Houghton Library given by Curator Leslie Morris hosted by the Emily Dickinson Museum on April 14, 2021
  • Making Emily Dickinson’s Black Cake video by Houghton Library staff baking Emily’s cake from December 2015
  • Lecture by Helen Vendler, “Emily Dickinson and the Sublime” with introduction by curator Leslie Morris on March 31, 2011

Accessing These Materials

There is no single database that can be searched for online versions of material in the Dickinson Collection. Patrons should use both HOLLIS and HOLLIS for Archival Discovery to locate material.

Due to the fragile nature of many items in the collection, researchers are required to use the facsimiles of Dickinson manuscripts and letters that are available. All poetry manuscripts are available online in color digital facsimile in the Emily Dickinson Archive as well as through the library's finding aids. The fascicles have also been published in facsimile. Dickinson's autograph letters are available in color digital facsimile in the Houghton Reading Room.

Some books in the Dickinson Family Library contain markings, and in 2010 Houghton Library embarked upon a program to stabilize and digitize these fragile volumes. The volumes are restricted because of their condition, and other copies of the same editions are held by the Houghton Library or in Widener Library. Readers are expected to use these alternate copies.

Permission to consult the original manuscripts or letters by Emily Dickinson, or books from the Dickinson Library, must be approved in advance.

Reproductions and Permissions

For permission to quote from or reproduce from manuscript material of Dickinson, contact the library . 

For permission to quote from published editions of Dickinson's work that are still in copyright (such as the Johnson and Franklin editions of the poems), and for all commercial uses of Emily Dickinson texts, contact Harvard University Press's Permissions Department .

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Related Collections

Woodberry poetry room comprehensive recording collection, access materials at houghton library, use harvard library's special collections and archives.

Interesting Literature

A Short Analysis of Emily Dickinson’s ‘I’m Nobody! Who are you?’

One of Dickinson’s best-loved short lyrics: an analysis

‘I’m Nobody! Who are you?’ is one of Emily Dickinson’s best-known poems , and one of her most celebrated opening lines, and as opening lines go, it’s wonderfully striking and memorable. The opening line features in our pick of the best Emily Dickinson quotations.

What follows is the poem, followed by a brief analysis of its meaning and features.

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!

‘I’m Nobody! Who are you?’: summary

The poem may be summarised very simply as being about how it is actually quite nice to be a Nobody rather than a Somebody – that anonymity is preferable to fame or public recognition.

Nobodies can stick together and revel in their anonymity, but it’s more difficult to find companionship and an equal when you’re in the public eye. As the old line has it, it’s lonely at the top.

Rather than buy the other old line – that fame and distinction are unequivocally desirable – Dickinson sees anonymity as an advantage. The poet proudly declares her ordinariness, her likeness to everyone else rather than her uniqueness.

‘I’m Nobody! Who are you?’: analysis

As with all Emily Dickinson poems, though, it is not so much what the poem says as how it says it that makes the poem distinct, memorable, and profound.

The rhyme scheme is erratic: the two stanzas roughly rhyme abcb , as with most of Dickinson’s poems, but this is unsettled right from the start:

Emily Dickinson

The rhyme scheme in the second stanza is more conventional ( Frog/Bog ), but the imagery is enigmatic. Why is a ‘Somebody’ like a frog? Because it croaks its (self-)importance constantly, to remind its surroundings that it is – indeed – Somebody? Or because there is something slimy and distasteful about people who possess smug self-importance because they are ‘Somebodies’.

Indeed, the clue lies in that opening line, which, if it is read as a response to a question (absent from the poem), makes more sense. But what question?

The one that fits the bill is Who do you think you are?  or  Who the hell are you?  Dickinson’s opening line, and the question shot back at the unseen addressee, support such an idea.

This would explain the uneasiness of the rhyme scheme in the first stanza: the poem can also be read as  satirical . In this reading of the poem, Dickinson’s speaker does  not identify with the addressee of the poem, because the addressee – unlike Dickinson herself – is deluded and believes himself to be a Somebody. Dickinson pricks this pomposity and, with faux innocence, pretends to identify with another self-confessed Nobody.

Another haughty question, often asked by a supercilious Somebody, is  Don’t you know who I am?  Dickinson knows she is a Nobody; the problem is that this other person doesn’t realise that he himself is also a Nobody.

Ultimately, Dickinson’s short lyric can be read either as a straightforward celebration of ‘Nobodiness’, of being that overlooked and underrated thing: the face in the crowd.

But it also allows for a more cunning satirical reading, whereby the poem is imagined to be a response to a question that has been left out of the poem. The strength of this poem is that it can be analysed either way – often the mark of great poetry.

However, there may be a  third  way of interpreting the poem, which is to see it as satire, but satire which mocks those sentimental devotional poets of the nineteenth century who praised the natural world and the heavens while humbly downplaying their own significance: next to the grandeur and majesty of the heavens, or the beauty and wonder of a mountain or an ocean, the sheer  vastness  of the world, how important is the individual human?

There were plenty of sentimental poets in nineteenth-century America writing such verse: showing off how wonderfully humble they were, if you will. Is Dickinson satirising  them  in ‘I’m Nobody! Who are you?’ Perhaps.

But more importantly – and perhaps more persuasively – the poem reflects Dickinson’s own suspicion of the limelight, and her fondness for privacy over celebrity. Famously (as it were), in her own lifetime, she was known more for her gardening than her poetry.

About Emily Dickinson

Perhaps no other poet has attained such a high reputation after their death that was unknown to them during their lifetime. Born in 1830, Emily Dickinson lived her whole life within the few miles around her hometown of Amherst, Massachusetts. She never married, despite several romantic correspondences, and was better-known as a gardener than as a poet while she was alive.

Nevertheless, it’s not quite true (as it’s sometimes alleged) that none of Dickinson’s poems was published during her own lifetime. A handful – fewer than a dozen of some 1,800 poems she wrote in total – appeared in an 1864 anthology, Drum Beat , published to raise money for Union soldiers fighting in the Civil War. But it was four years after her death, in 1890, that a book of her poetry would appear before the American public for the first time and her posthumous career would begin to take off.

Dickinson collected around eight hundred of her poems into little manuscript books which she lovingly put together without telling anyone. Her poetry is instantly recognisable for her idiosyncratic use of dashes in place of other forms of punctuation. She frequently uses the four-line stanza (or quatrain), and, unusually for a nineteenth-century poet, utilises pararhyme or half-rhyme as often as full rhyme. The epitaph on Emily Dickinson’s gravestone, composed by the poet herself, features just two words: ‘called back’.

For more tips on how analyse poetry, see our post offering advice on the close reading of a poem . If you’re revising for an exam, you might find our post on how to remember anything for an exam useful. Continue to explore American poetry with our analysis of the classic Wallace Stevens poem, ‘The Emperor of Ice-Cream’ . If you’re studying poetry, we recommend checking out these five books for the student of poetry .

emily dickinson personal essay

Image:  Black/white photograph of Emily Dickinson by William C. North (1846/7), Wikimedia Commons.

11 thoughts on “A Short Analysis of Emily Dickinson’s ‘I’m Nobody! Who are you?’”

Reblogged this on nativemericangirl's Blog .

This is such a lively poem. I was wondering though, why does Dickenson use dashes so often?

There are numerous theories for this, but the honest answer is that we don’t really know! It certainly makes for a very distinctive style – telegrammatic and idiosyncratic – as Wendy Cope notes in her poem: https://theartofreading.wordpress.com/2010/11/17/emily-dickinson-by-wendy-cope/

Thank you for explaining and the link.

Dash it all, Emily, your swift insights into human nature are enigmatically pleasing

Emily, understood well, that celebrity is a contradiction. All those that are really great don’t want celebrity, because celebrity hurts the sensitive feelings of the poet.

I just read this poem an hour ago and here we are with this. What a coincidence :)

When I did the MOOC – Modern American Poetry – the close readings of Emily Dickinson were a revelation. If anyone is interested I’d highly recommend the course! Many of hers seemed opaque on first reading – The Brain Is Wider Than The Sky is one of my favourites.

Great analysis of my favorite Emily Dickinson poem!

Reblogged this on Jude's Threshold and commented: On dear Emily!

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Exploring the Layers of Emily Dickinson’s Personal Life: a Question of Sexual Orientation

How it works

The enigma of Emily Dickinson’s life, especially her sexual orientation, has been a subject of intrigue and speculation for scholars and enthusiasts alike. Born in 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts, Dickinson is celebrated for her prolific and profound poetry, much of which delves into themes of love, death, and nature. However, the question of whether Emily Dickinson was gay is not just a matter of historical curiosity but also a reflection of how we interpret and understand the personal lives of historical figures.

Firstly, it’s essential to understand the context of Dickinson’s era. The 19th century was a period marked by rigid social norms and a limited understanding of sexual orientation as we know it today. The concept of being ‘gay’ in the contemporary sense was not a recognized or widely understood identity. In Dickinson’s time, deep friendships and emotional connections between women were common and socially acceptable, often devoid of any sexual connotations. Therefore, interpreting Dickinson’s relationships and feelings through a modern lens of sexuality can be anachronistic and may not accurately reflect the realities of her time.

Dickinson’s life was largely private and reclusive, leaving much of her personal experiences to speculation. Her letters and poems, however, offer some insights into her emotional world. One of the most significant relationships in her life was with Susan Gilbert Dickinson, her close friend and later sister-in-law. The correspondence between Emily and Susan is intense and affectionate, leading some scholars to suggest a romantic or sexual relationship. These letters are filled with passionate language and expressions of longing, which can be read as evidence of a romantic connection. Yet, it’s important to note that such expressive language was not uncommon in friendships during this period.

Moreover, Dickinson’s poetry often blurs the lines between platonic and romantic love, making it challenging to draw definitive conclusions about her sexual orientation. Her poems are characterized by their ambiguity and depth, often leaving the reader to interpret multiple layers of meaning. While some of her verses suggest a deep emotional and possibly romantic connection with women, they are also open to various interpretations, reflecting the complexity of human emotions and relationships.

Another aspect to consider is the limited documentation of Dickinson’s personal life. Much of what is known about her comes from her letters and poems, which, while insightful, provide only a partial view of her inner world. The lack of concrete evidence about her private life means that any conclusions about her sexual orientation are largely speculative.

In conclusion, the question of whether Emily Dickinson was gay remains an open one, subject to interpretation and debate. While her letters and poems suggest deep emotional connections with women, it is crucial to consider the historical context and the norms of her time. Dickinson’s life and work are a testament to the complexity of human emotions and relationships, transcending simple categorizations. Ultimately, her legacy lies not in defining her sexual orientation but in appreciating the depth and beauty of her poetry, which continues to resonate and inspire generations. Emily Dickinson remains an enigmatic figure, and perhaps it is this mystery that adds to the enduring fascination with her life and work.

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The Tragic Real-Life Story Of Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson

Today, Emily Dickinson is one of the most famous American poets, whose work you almost certainly encountered at some point in your school years. Dickinson was a trailblazer in poetry, incorporating an intimacy and immediacy to her poetic voice that was wholly new and exciting, conflating personal and inscrutable interior desires and memories with universal imagery that made them seem shared, like secrets between friends. You might not always understand what Dickinson was specifically thinking of when composing a poem, but you always feel like it speaks to something you have experienced yourself.

All great literature stems from the life experience of the artist, their emotional journey, and their interpretation of events. In Dickinson's poetry, you get a sense of who she was as a person: intelligent, curious — and sad. If all you know about Dickinson is that she existed and that you can sing all of her poems to the tune of the Gilligan's Island Theme Song , you might not know that her poetry's rich emotional palette stems from a life filled with sadness and loss. Read about the tragic real-life story of Emily Dickinson, and her poetry will have a new depth and meaning.

Emily Dickinson probably suffered from epilepsy

If Emily Dickinson's poetry hadn't been published after her death, she might have remained little more than a local legend. Born into a prominent family in Amherst, Massachusetts, she never left her family home and was referred to as "The Myth" or "The Lady in White" around town. Although obviously intelligent and enjoying many close relationships throughout her life, Dickinson was considered at the time to be a classic spinster — a woman who never married — and, later in life, a recluse.

She was also frequently unwell, suffering at different times in her life from respiratory illnesses and troubles with her eyesight. But author Lyndall Gordon writes in The Guardian that there is evidence Dickinson suffered from another lifelong affliction: epilepsy.

Gordon notes the near-constant reference to illness and the brain in her poetry, and the prescriptions written for her by her family physician are in line with 19th-century treatments of what was then called the Falling Disease. This would also explain Dickinson's frequent absences from school as a child — and her reclusive nature. At the time, epilepsy was still widely misunderstood , and epileptics were often considered to be evil, violent, or otherwise impaired. If a member of a prominent family suffered from the ailment, they would be very likely to try their best to conceal it — which might require that they stay inside, hiding.

Emily Dickinson loved a woman

Emily Dickinson's love life is a fascinating subject. For a woman who was reclusive and socially isolated, her poems brim with passion and references to mysterious objects of her affection, and as The Rumpus  notes, she wrote — though possibly never sent — three infamous (and steamy) letters to an unknown person she referred to as her "Master." She forged several very deep relationships with men over the course of her life, but there is another, even more tragic possibility: that Emily Dickinson was in love with a woman at a time when such relationships were beyond impossible.

Author  Martha Nell Smith  writes that Dickinson's unusually close relationship with her sister-in-law, Susan Huntington Dickinson, was very likely a romantic one. They lived next door to each other and wore a deep path between the houses with their frequent visits, and they enjoyed an intense correspondence of letters and passed notes that writer  Maria Popova  describes as "electric love letters" and The New York Times  describes as having "an intensity that some might view as erotic."

It's impossible to know whether Emily and Susan truly had a romantic relationship, but the circumstantial evidence is compelling. If it's true, they would have had to keep their relationship secret from everyone, especially Susan's husband — Dickinson's own brother.

Emily Dickinson remained anonymous

The world simply wasn't ready for Emily Dickinson's unique brand of poetry, and she actually made very little formal effort to publish her work. The level of interest she had in traditional publication is open to debate, but as The New Yorker  writes, her disinterest in official publication doesn't mean she didn't want her poetry to be read (her deathbed order to burn her poems aside). She sent many poems to friends, for example, and even tried her hand at self-publishing with hand-bound collections. She produced 40 such books during her life.

The tragedy is that Dickinson died without recognition for her work. Only ten of the nearly 1,800 poems she wrote were published in her lifetime, and those were published anonymously and were heavily edited in ways that removed everything that made them hers — including giving them titles and rhyme schemes that turned them into prettier but less interesting works. For example, Dickinson scholar Thomas H. Johnson notes that her poem "I taste a liquor never brewed" was printed in The Republican in 1861, but the editor gave it a different title and introduced a traditional rhyme scheme to replace Dickinson's more sophisticated "slant" rhyme. Nothing could be more depressing to a writer than to see their work so fundamentally changed, which might explain her disinterest in publication.

Emily Dickinson Lost Carlo

Emily Dickinson understood the fundamental truth of life: We simply don't deserve dogs . As professor of American literature Colleen Glenney Boggs writes, Dickinson was given a puppy by her father in 1849 and named the dog Carlo after a dog mentioned in the novel Jane Eyre. (Boggs also notes that "Carlo" was a very common name for a pet dog in the 19th century.)

Dickinson and Carlo became best friends for the next 16 years. The  Academy of American Poets  reports that beginning in 1850, you can find references to Carlo in many of Dickinson's letters and even her poems. In her letters, Dickinson described Carlo as being almost as large as she was, and in her poetry, she refers to Carlo with obvious affection and loyalty. As anyone who has ever enjoyed a dog's faithful companionship knows, losing such a friend can be a terrible emotional blow, and it's likely no coincidence that when Carlo passed away in 1866, Dickinson withdrew even further from outside life.

Despite her obvious pleasure in the animal and her tendency to refer to him in her work, Dickinson never took another pet despite living another two decades. As Wendy Martin , a professor of American literature, writes, Dickinson penned a poem in Carlo's honor: "Time is a test of trouble / But not a remedy — / If such it prove, it prove too / There was no malady."

Emily Dickinson had a strained relationship with her mother

Emily Dickinson is commonly known to have been a recluse, a woman who never moved out of her childhood home and who rarely even went outside. She wasn't the first Dickinson woman to behave like that, however. Her mother, who she was named after, also rarely left the house — but there was a crucial difference between the two. Where Emily was intensely emotional in her poetry and lavished affection on her friends, Harvard Magazine  describes her mother as "quite aloof," a woman who suffered from a mysterious illness for most of her life.

Emily herself had few kind words for her mother. Journalist  Esther Lombardi  notes some of the things she wrote about her mother in letters, including "My Mother does not care for thought" and "Could you tell me what home is. I never had a mother."

There is speculation that her mother suffered from depression or even bipolar disorder, explaining her lack of affect and disinterest in her daughter's well-being. This strained relationship was made even more difficult for Emily when her mother suffered a stroke and broken hip and was bedridden for the last seven years of her life, depending on Emily and her sister Lavinia to care for her until the end.

Emily Dickinson's closest friends died young

For a reclusive woman who hardly left her house and never traveled or married, Dickinson had no shortage of intense relationships. Two of the most important were with the Reverend Charles Wadsworth and Samuel Bowles. As academic Thomas H. Johnson wrote in American Heritage Magazine , there is plenty of evidence that Dickinson was absolutely in love with Wadsworth — though she only met him in person twice, and the pious reverend showed no signs of returning the sentiment beyond a platonic affection. And as The New Yorker  notes, when Dickinson entered into her most reclusive phase, it wasn't that she saw nobody, it was that she only saw an exclusive list of people, one of whom was Samuel Bowles (pictured above).

Her attachment to Wadsworth was obviously very deep: When he moved to San Francisco to join the Calvary Church, Johnson notes that the word "Cavalry" begins to appear in Dickinson's poetry, and no other place name is used nearly as often in her work.

Bowles died in 1878 when he was just 52 years old, and Dickinson wrote to his widow expressing her deep sadness at his passing. Wadsworth passed away just a few years later, in 1882, and Dickinson mourned, calling him "my dearest earthly friend." Most tragically, these were just the two most prominent friends that Dickinson lost in the last years of her life.

Emily Dickinson's lover died

Emily Dickinson's love life is an endless source of speculation precisely because of her spinsterish image — and its contrast with the fiery emotions of her poetry. When her father died in 1874, his old friend Otis Lord, a judge on the Massachusetts Supreme Court, maintained his interest in the family — especially Emily. He visited often and asked Emily's sister Lavinia to report on her health to him. When Lord's own wife passed away a few years later, this friendship erupted into a completely inappropriate love affair of sorts.

As author  Lyndall Gordon  writes, not only did Lord's own family fully believe rumors that Emily's sister-in-law had walked in on her embracing Otis in a more-than-friendly fashion (they referred to her as "Little Hussy"), but Dickinson's letters to Lord are practically confessions to the affair, such as one that says, "lift me back, wont you, for only there [in your arms] I ask to be." Meanwhile, Judge Lord's visits to Amherst became so regular that the locals began to openly speculate about a wedding despite him being 18 years older than her.

Tragedy struck before anything could come of it. Lord suffered a debilitating stroke in 1882, leaving him largely incapacitated, and he died two years later, possibly robbing Dickinson of her last chance at love and marriage.

Emily Dickinson died young

Part of the tragedy of Emily Dickinson is that she died so young. After a lifetime of isolation and illness, she passed away in 1886 at the age of just 55. Worse, her last years were marked by steady loss of friends and family, losses that sapped her desire to leave the house or even to write and circulate the poetry that had been her lifelong passion.

As Alfred Habegger writes for Encyclopedia Britannica , Dickinson's cause of death was a stroke, which her doctors attributed at the time to Bright's Disease, an affliction of the kidneys. Modern-day doctors have speculated it might have actually been hypertension. But author  John Evangelist Walsh  writes that it might have been much sadder than that: Emily Dickinson may have committed suicide.

Walsh's case is circumstantial but persuasive. Dickinson was clearly depressed after the loss of several loved ones, including Otis Lord, a man many speculated she might marry. She'd become almost totally reclusive in her last years, never leaving the house, and she'd stopped sending out her poems — though she continued to write, and her poetry from this period is dark, focused on death, and makes many references to famous suicides. Finally, the symptoms she exhibited in her final hours are in line with poisoning , indicating that she may have decided the time was right and taken things into her own hands. After all, this was the woman who wrote the famous lines "Because I could not stop for Death / He kindly stopped for me."

Emily Dickinson was only recognized after she died

Today, Emily Dickinson is a famous poet. Her poetry is studied, reprinted, and enjoyed by millions around the world. One of the most tragic aspects of her life is the fact that she died unrecognized for the genius she was.

When Dickinson died in 1886, no one outside of her immediate circle was aware of her poetry — and even they didn't have any idea of the scale of her creativity. She had asked her sister Lavinia to burn her papers, but when Lavinia discovered almost 1,800 poems in Dickinson's rooms, she thankfully decided that the word "papers" didn't mean "poems" and that the world needed to see her sister's work. The subsequent publishing of those poems finally woke the world up to Dickinson's genius.

But as  Literary Hub  reports, there was one further tragedy inflicted on Dickinson: The process of editing and publishing her poems was handled by a woman named Mabel Loomis Todd — who had engaged in an explosive extramarital affair with Dickinson's brother, Austin. Mabel took the work seriously but faced challenges: Dickinson's handwriting, for one, which she found difficult to parse. Another was the fact that Dickinson often worked outside of traditional forms, using techniques that are quite common in poetry today but were unusual back then. Todd often substituted words and changed rhyme schemes to make the poems more readable — but losing some of their genius in the process.

The death of Emily Dickinson's nephew broke her

Emily Dickinson's final years were marked by a series of personal losses. A woman with a very small social world, she watched helplessly as old friends vanished from her life. But one death appears to have been the final straw for the poet: Her young nephew Thomas Gilbert "Gib" Dickinson.

Gib died of typhoid in 1883. Author  Sharon Leiter  writes that he was a "remarkable" boy who was much-loved by his parents and everyone around him — especially his Aunt Emily, who doted on him and often took part in his adventures. When Gib fell ill with typhoid at the age of eight and lay on his deathbed, something remarkable happened: Emily, who had not been to her brother's house in 15 years (and who barely left her home at all) went there to sit with the young boy.

Dickinson fell ill after Gib's death and never fully recovered. She ceased most of her usual activities, including writing and sending out her poems to friends and family, and died just a little more than two years later. While there's no way to know for sure, her actions in these final years seem like a woman who was broken by this final, terrible loss.

Emily Dickinson spent her last year a recluse

Emily Dickinson was never much of a traveler –  Time Magazine  refers to her as a "textbook recluse." She was introverted and reclusive even in her youth, and The New Yorker  reports that she was known as "The Myth" by residents of Amherst, who were well-aware that she hardly ever left her home and engaged in curious behaviors like speaking to people through closed doors and lowering things in baskets from windows rather than coming down to interact with people.

Dickinson's eccentric ways soured into something worse in her final years, however, as she lost most of the important people in her life, including her lover Otis Lord and her close friends Charles Wadsworth, Helen Hunt Jackson, and Samuel Bowles. As Alfred Habegger writes for Encyclopedia Britannica , "The deaths of Dickinson's friends in her last years [...] left her feeling terminally alone." After the death of her beloved nephew, Gib, in 1883, Dickinson went beyond her usual isolation and retreated into her home, never to emerge again, for any reason. She spent the final year of her life almost totally and voluntarily cut off from the rest of the world, seeing almost no one.

Emily Dickinson gave up on her poetry

The most tragic thing any artist can do is to give up on their art — to stop creating and sharing their work with the world. This is precisely what Emily Dickinson did in her final years.

How much Dickinson wanted to publish her work is up for debate. Although only about ten of her poems appeared in print while she was alive — anonymously, sometimes apparently without her direct involvement — she also sent her poems to many of her friends and, as rare bookseller Debbie Deegan notes, assembled her poems into carefully edited and arranged hand-bound books.

But in her later years, Dickinson stopped making these books. As the  Emily Dickinson Museum  writes, poems from her final years appear on scraps of paper, as if they were afterthoughts. Even more tellingly, when she instructed her sister Lavinia to burn her "papers" after her death, she left no specific instruction for the dozens of poetry books she left behind — leaving open the possibility that she included her poems in that request and intended to erase them from the world when she was gone.

Luckily for us, Lavinia didn't listen. She burned Dickinson's personal letters as instructed — but opted to publish the poems.

Personal Response to Emily Dickinson Essay Example

Personal Response to Emily Dickinson Essay Example

  • Pages: 5 (1200 words)
  • Published: March 25, 2017
  • Type: Analysis

For me, the study of Emily Dickinson’s poetry was the most memorable part of poetry this year. The fact that all of Dickinson’s poetry is highly personal and filled with meaning and sentiment adds to the enjoyment of this renowned poets work. Dickinson is a highly elusive poet and we are given the knowledge of Dickinson’s sheltered upbringing but yet still it amazes me the fact that her poems are still around to this day, one of the main contributing factors to this is down to the fact that her themes are universal and are something everyone can relate to. A poem that’s theme I found quite thought provoking is “There's a Certain Slant of Light”. This poem explores the relationship between man and God. This relationship is not comforting but one which causes fear as our immortality is revealed to us. She believes

that the slant of light reminds us of our vulnerability and this knowledge is hurtful and depressing.

“Heavenly Hurt it gives us” “An Imperial affliction Sent us of the Air”

These themes are enhanced by the use of language in the poem. The language is stark and creates an air of solemnity. Vocabulary such as “Winter”, “oppresses” and “Hurt” help create this atmosphere, but also adds to the depressing nature. The poets reference to light and dark contributes to the depressing theme which adds to the sobriety of the poem. The exploration of this depressing theme is uncomfortable for both reader and poet but this adds to the interest of the poem.

Another interesting poem is “Hope is the Thing with Feathers”. The language is once more trade mark Dickinson. Random capitalisation and dashes.

The theme of this poem is Hope. Hence the title but anyways, Hope permeates throughout the whole poems structure. The pre dominant image of hope is that of:

“Hope is the thing with feathers-

That perches in the soul”

This image of the bird, valiantly perching in ones soul superbly captures the readers emotions and provokes many thoughts on life and how even in times of hardship, hope can always permeate your life! Vocabulary such as”never stops”, “sweetest” and “warm” all compliment the image of the bird percheing proudly in ones soul and this gives me great joy to think of. This image is in stark contrast to the difficult times which are presented through pathetic fallacy and through harsh geographical landscapes:

“I’ve heard it in the chilliest land- And on the strangest sea-”

Once more, I love Dickinsons sense of contrast and use of hard hitting vivid images to help portray her points.

“Write a personal response in relation to Dickinson’s exploration of theme”

The next poem I am going to look at is “I Heard a Fly Buzz-When I Died”. The theme of this masterpiece is quite unusual. The predominant theme is that of “the poets preoccupation with death”. One could argue that a second theme would be the hardships endured by people in life. The trademark standard random capitalisation and dashes capture the fading senses of the pot and emphasise the slow painful process of death.The repetition of:

This highlights the process of deterioration involved in dying as slowly but surely each one of your senses slowly begins to evade you. The lovely use of assonance highlights the poets preoccupation with death. There is a lovely simile in the

opening stanza comparing the silence and tention in the room to the eye of a storm.

“Was like the stillness in the air Between the heaves of storm”

The images in the final stanza are particulary interesting. The fly represents the poets last look on earth and the “Windows” refer to the fading and deteorating sight of the poet.

The next poem I will look at is “I Felt a Funeral in My Brain”. The predominant theme of this poem is Madness. The first half of the poem is rational even though she feels a funeral in her head:

“That sense was breaking through”

This shows a possible suggestion that she was on the edge of understanding of what is happening to her. The second half of the poem is surreal it has no proper senses. The appearances seem to be neat but when you look deeply her life seems to be incomplete with the hyphens peppered throughout her work. The repetition of “and” is a rush of words to try and get her meaning off as quick as possible. There is sensory deprivation throughout the play. She only feels and hears the funeral, does not see it. This could represent to a bad migrane. Only she knows its there, everyone else is oblivious. The pain is so great it has aneschetized her senses.

Imagery used is aural. Dickinson is suffering from a catastrophic breakdown, and this once again highlights her madness, the poems predominant theme. Dickinson uses enjanment to create a flowing effect throughout her poetry, which shows she is rushed and doesn’t follow rational poetic techniques, she always ends her poems with either a hyphen or a question mark and

this shows great confusion amongst her poems and once again highlights her frail state of mind. “I felt a funeral in my brain” is one of Dickinson’s longest poems at 5 stanzas, her usual poems consist of 4 stanzas, this once again shows the reader her madness and her deteorating state of mind. The rhyming scheme is ABCB, it is imperfect rhythm and this is a good beat.

The final poem I would like to look at is “ I taste a Liqour never Brewed”. The once again universal theme in this poem is Nature. Everyone can releate to it and this is the mitigating factor as to why Dickinson’s poems are still around today. Dickinson whimsically describes the exhilarating effect of nature. The title may perceive the reader into thinking that this poem has to do with alcohol but it misleads the reader. Dickinson is a hummingbird and is intoxicated on air, nature is her alcohol.

She does not drink as she was bought up in a devout religious family, her father preached Calvinism, which is very strict on drinking. So nature is her drug and she is just fanatic about outdoors. Dickinson establishes the drinking metaphor with the first line. Pearl, a precious gem, indicates the value of liquor made under the best of circumstances; her liquor (the beauty of nature) is even more precious. She uses the metaphor to show how nature elates her. She compares white flowers to tankards(drinking glasses), her flower is her drinking glass. The use of religious language is strictly for mockery purposes, she is not condemning the religion, using

such words as: “Inebriate”, “debauchee”, “renounce” and “seraphs”.

At times I have not liked Dickinson’s style but the one thing that you cant fault Dickinson for is her honesty, she completely lays herself bare in her poems which only a handful of poets do. Her themes are universal and this is the main reason as to why, 100 years on, we are still studying her beautiful masterpieces.

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My name is so common my husband even dated someone with the same name before meeting me

  • My name is Emily and I was named after my grandmother. 
  • My mom said that people tend to like an Emily and she secretly wished that was her name. 
  • Even my husband dated an Emily before me. 

Insider Today

The other day, it finally happened: I ended up on an email chain at work where I had to connect one Emily to another Emily to do this or that. It started out “Dear Emily," and I signed it, “Best regards, Emily." Shortly after I hit send, it struck me that the moment I had been dreading since I was but a wee Emily myself had come: the age of Emily was upon us. 

It’s often repeated that people love to hear their own name spoken out loud to them. But when your name was the No. 1 girl's name in the United States between 1996 and 2007, and you now share it with roughly 802,000 people in America, there will be feelings.

Call it the John Smithification of naming: What was once a distinctive, literary-leaning name with nuanced shades of meaning has started to feel common and empty.   

I was named after my grandmother

For three decades I’ve asked my mother, a Susan, how I ended up an Emily. She has always told me she named me after her mother, Emily Jean, but last week she finally revealed to me that she had actually wanted to be an Emily.

“What’s not to like about Emily?” she said.

So this is the first thing you need to understand about Emilys — they were named to be liked. 

If Karen has become a catchall for the entitled white woman with a few words for your customer service rep, Emily is tailored for the social media age — an ebullient try-hard maintaining a sweetness of demeanor and an air of general enthusiasm while pursuing her secret plans to get what she wants.

This could be why half of the public relations professionals I interacted with last week share my name — Emilys often self-select into communications jobs.

I didn’t grow up with the albatross of likeability. The Emilys of my youth were dreamy, far-off figures — bookish role models and lifestyle influencers before such a thing existed.

There are Emilys everywhere

First there was Emily Dickinson , arguably the Ur-Emly, with her enviable routine:  “Woke up, saw no one, wore white.”  Her preferences for privacy, solitude, and a life of the imagination still float in the air whenever I hear someone yell: “Emily!” in the grocery store.

And then there was the Emily Bartlett, of Beverly Cleary’s "Emily’s Runaway Imagination" — a farm girl who makes mistakes (for shame, Emily!) but whose overall drive is virtuous — to bring a branch library to her rural community.

But the biggest Emily in my life, by shelf real estate, came in the form of the navy doorstop of "Emily Post’s Etiquette." In my family, we actually consulted her — even if she counseled women to keep their witty remarks to themselves.

Emily may mean “industrious, eager, ” but what I took from her is that to be an Emily ( Emily Ratjakowski excluded) is to be a rule follower — at least publicly.

I didn’t meet another Emily until late elementary when I encountered Emily Good in my ballroom dancing class, with her blond ringlets and patent leather shoes. Good luck Googling her, by the way — I counted 88 Emily Goods on LinkedIn alone. 

Obviously, I hated her — she was even more of an Emily than I was.

I did a little better with other Emilys — a middle school Emily who kind of looked like me, or my first cool Emily, in the sandwich shop where I worked.

My husband dated an Emily before me

But once I joined the media world, they were everywhere — on all the magazine mastheads, in my ear as NPR reporters, sitting behind news desks, getting nominated for Oscars ( Emma Stone is actually Emily, by the way). 

Within a decade, there were so many Emilys that I started to feel like “Agent Smith” in the Matrix, except we are all eager white ladies circling back next week.

Too many Emilys means that most Emilys have considered a rebrand. I’ve thought of this myself — maybe changing my name to Emmy (my family nickname) or dropping the “ily” in favor of instant relatability (see stylist Em Henderson). 

By the way, my husband’s first serious girlfriend was also an Emily. Charitably, he refers to her only by her last name, like a sports announcer.  

But lately, I have been longing to find nuance in Emily, where popularity and likeability have washed away my early associations. So, I’ve tasked myself with identifying a plural form for that moment when I discover several Emilys in one room.

I asked my Facebook friends, and they suggested: embargo, engagement, ensemble, eloquence, exuberance,  electorate, eminence, or enchantment.

But I’m leaning toward something that gets at what it’s like when you’re finally enough of your own Emily that you can see yourself as part of a sneaker wave of ambitious and imaginative women enacting their big, beautiful plans at every level of society.

A delight of Emilys.  

Emily Grosvenor is the author of the book " Find Yourself at Home ," and writes the Substack newsletter ★ I would do it differently. ★.  

emily dickinson personal essay

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Emily Dickinson Personal Response

Emily Dickinson Personal Response

Emily Dickinson was a talented writer who focused on two main subjects in her poetry: death and nature. Poems J. 816 and J. 1078 both deal with the subject of death, but have different themes. J. 816 questions the existence of an afterlife, while J. 1078 examines what happens after death. Dickinson’s poems often had different themes, despite having similar subjects. Despite her talent, Dickinson was not recognized as an exceptional poet until after her death.

Emily Dickinson was an amazing writer that wasn’t acknowledged until after her death. She wrote many poems that all related to two subjects; death and nature. Both poem J. 816 and J. 1078 are both examples of poems that have the subject of death. These 2 poems have many similarities but differ in the form of theme.

Poem “J. 816” is of the subject of death. This is made clear throughout the poem. Some of the important quotes the helped determine the subject were: “Who till they died” as well as “They died, Vitality begun.”. Poem “J. 1078” is also on the subject of death. This thought is also made clear throughout the poem. This is made clear by the quotes: “The Morning after Death” as well as “Until Eternity”(line 8). These poems do relate in the way of subject, but have slightly different themes.

Although many of her poems related to two subjects, the theme differed. Poem J. 816, the subject of death portrays the thematic idea that- does after life exist? This is evident in line 5 when it says: “Who had they lived”. In poem J. 1078, the references to death create the thematic idea that questions what really happens in afterlife, or what to expect? This is evident in line 2 when it says: “The Morning after Death”.

Emily Dickinson’s poems all related to two subjects; death and nature. Although the themes she developed had a wide variety. She was a very outstanding poet, but wasn’t recognized until after she had died.

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Emily Dickinson’s Views on Death in Her Confessional Poetry

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The Concepts of Faith and Doubt in Emily Dickinson's Poetry

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December 10, 1830 Amherst, Massachusetts, United States

May 15, 188 Amherst, Massachusetts, US

  • “If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain.”
  • “That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet.”
  • “If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry.”
  • “I am out with lanterns, looking for myself.”

December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886

Emily Dickinson was an American lyric poet who lived in seclusion and commanded a singular brilliance of style and integrity of vision. With Walt Whitman, Dickinson is widely considered to be one of the two leading 19th-century American poets.

“Hope is the thing with feathers", "Success is counted sweetest", "I felt a Funeral, in my Brain", "There’s a certain Slant of light", "This is my letter to the World", "I dwell in Possibility", etc.

Many of Dickinson's poems deal with themes of death and immortality, two recurring topics in letters to her friends, and also explore aesthetics, society, nature and spirituality.

Emily Dickinson was known for her bold original verse, which stands out for its epigrammatic compression, haunting personal voice, and enigmatic brilliance. Her poems were unique for her era. They contain short lines, typically lack titles, and often use slant rhyme as well as unconventional capitalization and punctuation.

“If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain.” “Forever is composed of nows.” “That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet.”

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emily dickinson personal essay

Impression of Emily Dickinson’s Work Essay

Since so much of her work has appeared for the first time in the 21 st century, Emily Dickinson seems almost a contemporary; and her unevenness, her paradoxes, and conceits are well suited to present-day conventions. But a great number of her verses are inchoative rather than finished–a fact clear enough to herself but often lost sight of in the undiscriminating enthusiasm which they have sometimes elicited.

Yet, whether complete or incomplete, whether accurately or inaccurately reproduced by editors, a substantial element in her poems provide rare ignition for the emotions or challenges the intellect by cryptic wit. Her irony often supplies a kind of caper sauce for the digestion of her moralizing, and when her paradoxes do fulminate they leave one breathless with their startling originality. But often the thyme and marjoram of form and content are not transformed into the miracle of honey.

I read all of the poems and find them to be emotional. I find some of it difficult to comprehend due to the symbolism until I reread her biography. I like her ability to put her feelings into words and symbols, but don’t like the difficulty in understanding the meaning of the symbols. Dickinson’s writing does require a lot of critical thinking and analysis to decipher the meaning.

In “Much Madness is divinest Sense” Dickinson handled the theme of madness with a lighter touch. This poem’s social satire on the “Majority” (whose numerousness is emphasized by the plural “prevail”) attacks its lack of discernment about individual behavior, as well as the fear of difference that leads it to define disagreement as insanity. The opening may be parallel to Melville’s “man’s insanity is heaven’s sense”. The “discerning Eye” that sees through society’s “Madness” is certainly the poet’s and, implicitly, belongs to certain other naysayers as well. (Dickinson 435)

“I felt a Funeral, in my Brain” articulates a state of consciousness that follows the stages of a funeral rite: the mourners tread, the service is conducted, the pallbearers carry the casket, and the church bells ring. If we follow the poem’s stages in this way, then it might depict a kind of Poe-Esque premature burial, given that the speaker describes events from inside the casket. The “knowing” that is finished in the final stanza would presumably be consciousness. (Dickinson 280)

“I heard a Fly buzz — when I died” offers Dickinson’s response to the question, What is it like to experience death? For the narrator, the final moments of life are interrupted by the mundane buzzing of a fly, demonstrating Dickinson’s unique twist on the old familiar deathbed scene. (Dickinson 465)

“Some keep the Sabbath going to Church”) Marked by its set of contrasting images that cluster around “Church” and “Home,” this poem was prominent in Dickinson circles in the nineteenth century. In the poem, the speaker celebrates a church ritual in an orchard with a bobolink as sexton, one who sings instead of tolling a bell. In this pleasant scene, “God preaches, a noted Clergyman,” (Dickinson 324) and the speaker finally claims that this setting constitutes heaven she can enjoy throughout her life rather than “getting to” the heaven of traditional religious beliefs. The poem reveals Dickinson’s delight in a natural setting, her preference for the earth and this life, her rejection of institutionalized religion and its practices, and her general distrust of ministers and their dogmatism. (Dickinson 324)

In “The Soul selects her own Society” Dickinson expressed her choice to concentrate emotional energies on an important few. This poem witnesses Dickinson’s intense individualism: her commitment to Romantic trust in the ability, nobility, sanctity, and worth of the individual, above — and often in opposition to — community, institution, doctrine, and even religious faith. (Dickinson 303)

“Because I could not stop for Death’s” haunting quality stems from its never fully articulated suspicion that Death’s courtship may never lead beyond the limbo of the grave, that is, that Death may be as sinister as “He” is suave. The “Horses Heads” remain “toward Eternity “; but, as there is no evidence that they will arrive, even that good chaperon “Immortality” may not deliver the clarity and comfort promised in Victorian accounts of Christian death or marriage with God. Dickinson makes no overt claim that death is frightening or heaven unreachable, but she effectively undercuts the apparent calm certainties of the first three stanzas through the understated “chill” of the final three. (Dickinson 712)

“The Brain — is wider than the Sky” was first published in Poems (1896) as “The Brain.” Though the subject of consciousness is introduced in stanza 1, the poem’s theme is the brain’s infinity — which it elucidates by comparing it sequentially to the sky, the sea, and God, using the lexical fields of measurement and capacity. While the first two stanzas claim the mind’s superiority to matter, the last seems to assert that the mind and the idea of God are indistinguishable. (Dickinson 632)

“I died for Beauty–but was scarce” like a number concerning immortality, possesses a sense of ambiguity. It may be that what is not expressed carries some significance. Nowhere in this poem does Emily Dickinson directly imply that we are witnessing the entering into of an immortal state. The assumption, if it is made, is in the mind of the reader. What we do have in this poem is a rather complete immersion in the material, from the sense at the beginning of an after-death condition-reassuring but essentially mortal–to the sense at the end of undisguised physical death and decay, also very much the mortal condition. The poem is manipulative and deliberately ambivalent. (Dickinson 449)

“After great pain a formal feeling comes,” has the classical finality of a Greek ode. This poem describes a woman prostrated by a shock. Dickinson repeatedly describes emotional states with uncanny accuracy. This poem gives a searching and realistic description of a state of mind. Dickinson’s curiosity explored the outstanding problems of psychologists. Thus she has several fascinating lyrics dealing frankly with questions of memory and forgetfulness. (Dickinson 341)

“Wild Nights–Wild Nights!” is perhaps the most overtly erotic of all Dickinson’s poems. Its ecstatic nature is underscored by the preponderance of accented syllables in the opening stanza, with the double stress of “Wild Nights” repeated no fewer than three times in the space of fourteen words. The “Wild Nights” themselves may be taken to signify both stormy weather and sexual passion. The first and third stanzas express the speaker’s longing for her love, whereas the second details her feeling of contentment when she is united with the lover. Nautical imagery pervades the poem, from the storms indicated by both “Wild Nights” and “the Winds” to such terms as “port”, compass”, “chart”, “rowing”, “sea” and “moor”. (Dickinson 249)

Dickinson, Emily (Author) & Johnson, Thomas H (Editor). The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. New York: Little, Brown and Company; Stated First Edition, 1960.

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The Lure of Divorce

Seven years into my marriage, i hit a breaking point — and had to decide whether life would be better without my husband in it..

Portrait of Emily Gould

This article was featured in One Great Story , New York ’s reading recommendation newsletter. Sign up here to get it nightly.

In the summer of 2022, I lost my mind. At first, it seemed I was simply overwhelmed because life had become very difficult, and I needed to — had every right to — blow off some steam. Our family was losing its apartment and had to find another one, fast, in a rental market gone so wild that people were offering over the asking price on rent. My husband, Keith, was preparing to publish a book, Raising Raffi, about our son, a book he’d written with my support and permission but that, as publication loomed, I began to have mixed feelings about. To cope with the stress, I asked my psychiatrist to increase the dosage of the antidepressant I’d been on for years. Sometime around then, I started talking too fast and drinking a lot.

I felt invincibly alive, powerful, and self-assured, troubled only by impatience with how slowly everyone around me was moving and thinking. Drinking felt necessary because it slightly calmed my racing brain. Some days, I’d have drinks with breakfast, lunch, and dinner, which I ate at restaurants so the drink order didn’t seem too unusual. Who doesn’t have an Aperol spritz on the way home from the gym in the morning? The restaurant meals cost money, as did the gym, as did all the other random things I bought, spending money we didn’t really have on ill-fitting lingerie from Instagram and workout clothes and lots of planters from Etsy. I grew distant and impatient with Keith as the book’s publication approached, even as I planned a giant party to celebrate its launch. At the party, everyone got COVID. I handed out cigarettes from a giant salad bowl — I had gone from smoking once or twice a day to chain-smoking whenever I could get away with it. When well-meaning friends tried to point out what was going on, I screamed at them and pointed out everything that was wrong in their lives. And most crucially, I became convinced that my marriage was over and had been over for years.

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I built a case against my husband in my mind. This book of his was simply the culmination of a pattern: He had always put his career before mine; while I had tended to our children during the pandemic, he had written a book about parenting. I tried to balance writing my own novel with drop-offs, pickups, sick days, and planning meals and shopping and cooking, most of which had always been my primary responsibility since I was a freelancer and Keith had a full-time job teaching journalism. We were incompatible in every way, except that we could talk to each other as we could to no one else, but that seemed beside the point. More relevant: I spent money like it was water, never budgeting, leaving Keith to make sure we made rent every month. Every few months, we’d have a fight about this and I’d vow to change; some system would be put in place, but it never stuck. We were headed for disaster, and finally it came.

Our last fight happened after a long day spent at a wedding upstate. I’d been drinking, first spiked lemonade at lunch alone and then boxed wine during the wedding reception, where I couldn’t eat any of the food — it all contained wheat, and I have celiac disease. When we got back, late, to the house where we were staying, I ordered takeout and demanded he go pick it up for me. Calling from the restaurant, he was incensed. Did I know how much my takeout order had cost? I hadn’t paid attention as I checked boxes in the app, nor had I realized that our bank account was perilously low — I never looked at receipts or opened statements. Not knowing this, I felt like he was actually denying me food, basic sustenance. It was the last straw. I packed a bag as the kids played happily with their cousins downstairs, then waited by the side of the road for a friend who lived nearby to come pick me up, even as Keith stood there begging me to stay. But his words washed over me; I was made of stone. I said it was over — really over. This was it, the definitive moment I’d been waiting for. I had a concrete reason to leave.

A few days later, still upstate at my friend’s house, I had a Zoom call with my therapist and my psychiatrist, who both urged me in no uncertain terms to check myself into a psychiatric hospital. Even I couldn’t ignore a message that clear. My friend drove me to the city, stopping for burgers along the way — I should have relished the burger more, as it was some of the last noninstitutional food I would eat for a long time — and helped me check into NYU Langone. My bags were searched, and anything that could be used as a weapon was removed, including my mascara. I spent my first night there in a gown in a cold holding room with no phone, nothing but my thoughts. Eventually, a bed upstairs became free and I was brought to the psych ward, where I was introduced to a roommate, had blood drawn, and was given the first of many pills that would help me stop feeling so irrepressibly energetic and angry. They started me on lithium right away. In a meeting with a team of psychiatrists, they broke the news: I had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder; they weren’t sure which kind yet. They gave me a nicotine patch every few hours plus Klonopin and Seroquel and lithium.

I wasn’t being held involuntarily, which meant I could write letters on an official form explaining why I ought to be released, which the psychiatrists then had three days to consider. I attached extra notebook pages to the letters explaining that I was divorcing my husband and was terrified I would never be able to see my kids again if I was declared unfit because I was insane. These letters did not result in my release; if anything, they prolonged my stay. I got my phone back — it would soon be revoked again, wisely — but in that brief interim, I sent out a newsletter to my hundreds of subscribers declaring that I was getting a divorce and asking them to Venmo me money for the custody battle I foresaw. In this newsletter, I also referenced Shakespeare. The drugs clearly had not kicked in yet. I cycled through three different roommates, all of whom were lovely, though I preferred the depressed one to the borderline ones. We amused ourselves during the day by going to art therapy, music therapy, and meetings with our psychiatrists. I made a lot of beaded bracelets.

In the meetings with the shrinks, I steadfastly maintained that I was sane and that my main problem was the ending of my marriage. I put Keith, and my mother, on a list of people who weren’t allowed to visit me. Undaunted, Keith brought me gluten-free egg sandwiches in the morning, which I grudgingly ate — anything for a break from the hospital food. My parents came up from D.C. and helped Keith take care of our children. I was in the hospital for a little more than three weeks, almost the entire month of October, longer than I’d ever been away from my kids before in their lives. I celebrated my 41st birthday in the hospital and received a lot of very creative cards that my fellow crazies had decorated during art therapy. Eventually, the drugs began to work: I could tell they were working because instead of feeling energetic, I suddenly couldn’t stop crying. The tears came involuntarily, like vomit. I cried continuously for hours and had to be given gabapentin in order to sleep.

emily dickinson personal essay

On the day I was released, I didn’t let anyone pick me up. I expected the superhuman strength I’d felt for months to carry me, but it was gone, lithiumed away. Instead, I felt almost paralyzed as I carried my bags to a cab. When I arrived at my apartment, I couldn’t figure out where I should sleep. It didn’t feel like my home anymore. We couldn’t afford to live separately, even temporarily, but the one thing that our somewhat decrepit, inconveniently located new apartment had in its favor was two small attic bedrooms and one larger bedroom downstairs. I claimed this downstairs room for myself and began to live there alone, coming into contact with Keith only when we had to be together with our children.

You might assume that my fixation on divorce would have subsided now that my mental health had stabilized and I was on strong antipsychotic medication. But I still did not want to stay in my marriage. If anything, I felt a newfound clarity: Keith and I had fundamentally incompatible selves. Our marriage had been built on a flaw. My husband was older, more established and successful in his career. These were the facts, so it had to be my job to do more of the work at home. Unless, of course, I decided to take myself and my work as seriously as he took his. But that was unappealing; I had managed to publish three books before turning 40, but I didn’t want to work all the time, like he does.

I wondered if my marriage would always feel like a competition and if the only way to call the competition a draw would be to end it.

We picked the kids up from school and dropped them off, or really mostly Keith did. I appeared at meals and tried to act normal. I was at a loss for what to do much of the time. I attended AA meetings and the DBT meetings required by the hospital outpatient program, and I read. I read books about insanity: Darkness Visible, The Bell Jar, An Unquiet Mind, Postcards From the Edge. I tried to understand what was happening to me, but nothing seemed to resonate until I began to read books about divorce. I felt I was preparing myself for what was coming. The first book I read was Rachel Cusk’s Aftermath, which has become the go-to literary divorce bible since its 2012 publication. In it, Cusk describes the way her life shattered and recomposed after the dissolution of her marriage, when her daughters were still very young. She makes the case for the untenability of her relationship by explaining that men and women are fundamentally unequal. She posits that men and women who marry and have children are perpetually fighting separate battles, lost to each other: “The baby can seem like something her husband has given her as a substitute for himself, a kind of transitional object, like a doll, for her to hold so that he can return to the world. And he does, he leaves her, returning to work, setting sail for Troy. He is free, for in the baby the romance of man and woman has been concluded: each can now do without the other.”

At our relationship’s lowest moments, this metaphor had barely been a metaphor. I remembered, the previous winter, Keith going off on a reporting trip to Ukraine at the very beginning of the war, leaving me and the kids with very little assurance of his safety. I had felt okay for the first couple of days until I heard on the news of bombing very close to where he was staying. After that, I went and bummed a cigarette from a neighbor, leaving the kids sleeping in their beds in order to do so. It was my first cigarette in 15 years. Though that had been the winter before my mania began, I believe the first seeds of it were sown then: leaving the children, smoking the cigarette, resenting Keith for putting himself in harm’s way and going out into the greater world while I tended to lunches, homework, and laundry as though everything were normal.

In Nora Ephron’s Heartburn, as in Aftermath, I found an airtight case for divorce. The husband was the villain and the wife the wronged party, and the inevitable result was splitting up. I felt an echo of this later on when I read Lyz Lenz’s polemic This American Ex-Wife, out this month, marketed as “a deeply validating manifesto on the gender politics of marriage (bad) and divorce (actually pretty good!).” The book begins by detailing how Lenz’s husband rarely did household chores and hid belongings of hers that he didn’t like — e.g., a mug that said WRITE LIKE A MOTHERFUCKER — in a box in the basement. “I didn’t want to waste my one wild and precious life telling a grown man where to find the ketchup,” Lenz writes. “What was compelling about my marriage wasn’t its evils or its villains, but its commonplace horror.”

This was not quite the way I felt. Even though I could not stand to see my husband’s face or hear his voice, even though I still felt the same simmering resentment I had since I entered the hospital, I also found myself feeling pangs of sympathy for him. After all, he was going through this too. When we were inevitably together, at mealtimes that were silent unless the children spoke, I could see how wounded he was, how he was barely keeping it together. His clothes hung off his gaunt frame. And at night, when we passed in the kitchen making cups of tea that we would take to our respective rooms, he sometimes asked me for a hug, just a hug. One time I gave in and felt his ribs through his T-shirt. He must have lost at least 15 pounds.

It began to seem like I only ever talked to friends who had been through divorces or were contemplating them. One friend who didn’t know whether to split up with her husband thought opening their marriage might be the answer. Another friend described the ease of sharing custody of his young daughter, then admitted that he and his ex-wife still had sex most weekends. In my chronically undecided state, I admired both of these friends who had found, or might have found, a way to split the difference. Maybe it was possible to break up and remain friends with an ex, something that had never happened to me before in my entire life. Maybe it was possible to be married and not married at the same time. Then I went a little further in my imagination, and the idea of someone else having sex with my husband made me want to gag with jealousy. Maybe that meant something. I was so confused, and the confusion seemed to have no end.

I read more books about divorce. I received an early copy of Sarah Manguso’s Liars, marketed as “a searing novel about being a wife, a mother, and an artist, and how marriage makes liars out of us all.” In it, John, a creative dilettante, and Jane, a writer, meet and soon decide to marry. Liars describes their marriage from beginning to end, a span of almost 15 years, and is narrated by Jane. The beginning of their relationship is delirious: “I tried to explain that first ferocious hunger and couldn’t. It came from somewhere beyond reason.” But the opening of that book also contains a warning. “Then I married a man, as women do. My life became archetypal, a drag show of nuclear familyhood. I got enmeshed in a story that had already been told ten billion times.” I felt perversely reassured that I was merely adding another story to the 10 billion. It made it seem less like it was my fault.

The beginning of my relationship with my husband wasn’t that dramatic or definitive. I thought I was getting into something casual with someone I didn’t even know if I particularly liked, much less loved, but was still oddly fascinated by. I wanted to see the way he lived, to see if I could emulate it and become more like him. He lived with roommates in his 30s — well, that was the price you paid if you wanted to do nothing but write. I wanted what he had, his seriousness about his work. We went on dates where we both sat with our laptops in a café, writing, and this was somehow the most romantic thing I’d ever experienced. On our third date, we went to his father’s home on Cape Cod to dog-sit for a weekend, and it was awkward in the car until we realized we were both thinking about the same Mary Gaitskill story, “A Romantic Weekend,” in which a couple with dramatically mismatched needs learn the truth about each other through painful trial and error. Our weekend was awkward, too, but not nearly as awkward as the one in the story. On the way home, I remember admiring Keith’s driving, effortless yet masterful. I trusted him in the car completely. A whisper of a thought: He would make a good father.

In Liars, cracks begin to form almost immediately, even before John and Jane get engaged; she is accepted to a prestigious fellowship and he isn’t, and he is forthright about his fear that she will become more successful than he is: “A moment later he said he didn’t want to be the unsuccessful partner of the successful person. Then he apologized and said that he’d just wanted to be honest. I said, It was brave and considerate to tell me. ”

Through the next few years, so gradually that it’s almost imperceptible, John makes it impossible for Jane to succeed. He launches tech companies that require cross-country moves, forcing Jane to bounce between adjunct-teaching gigs. And then, of course, they have a baby. The problem with the baby is that Jane wants everything to be perfect for him and throws herself into creating a tidy home and an ideal child-development scenario, whereas John works more and more, moving the family again as one start-up fails and another flourishes. Jane begins to wonder whether she has created a prison for herself but pacifies herself with the thought that her situation is normal: “No married woman I knew was better off, so I determined to carry on. After all, I was a control freak, a neat freak, a crazy person.” The story John tells her about herself becomes her own story for a while. For a while, it’s impossible to know whose story is the truth.

I thought about Keith’s side of the story when I read Liars. Maybe it was the lack of alcohol’s blur that enabled me to see this clearly for the first time — I began to see how burdened he had been, had always been, with a partner who refused to plan for the future and who took on, without being asked, household chores that could just as easily have been distributed evenly. Our situation had never been as clear-cut as it was for Lyz Lenz; Keith had never refused to take out the trash or hidden my favorite mug. But he worked more and later hours, and my intermittent book advances and freelance income could not be counted on to pay our rent. As soon as we’d had a child, he had been shunted into the role of breadwinner without choosing it or claiming it. At first, I did all the cooking because I liked cooking and then, when I stopped liking cooking, I did it anyway out of habit. For our marriage to change, we would have needed to consciously decide to change it, insofar as our essential natures and our financial situation would allow. But when were we supposed to have found the time to do that? It was maddening that the root of our fracture was so commonplace and clichéd — and that even though the problem was ordinary, I still couldn’t think my way out of it.

Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story, by Leslie Jamison , is in some ways the successor to Aftermath — the latest divorce book by a literary superstar. It is mostly an account of Jamison’s passionate marriage to a fellow writer, C., and the way that marriage fell apart after her career accelerated and they had a child together. It then details her first months of life as a single mother and her forays into dating. In it, she is strenuously fair to C., taking much of the blame for the dissolution of their marriage. But she can’t avoid describing his anger that her book merits an extensive tour, while his novel — based on his relationship with his first wife, who had died of leukemia — fails commercially. “It didn’t get the reception he had hoped for,” Jamison writes, and now, “I could feel him struggling. He wanted to support me, but there was a thorn in every interview.” C. grows distant, refusing to publicly perform the charming self that Jamison fell in love with. “I wished there was a way to say, Your work matters, that didn’t involve muting my own,” Jamison writes.

For all my marriage’s faults, we never fought in public. Friends encouraged us to reconcile, saying, “You always seemed so good together.” (As if there were another way to seem! Standing next to each other at a party, it had always been easy to relax because we couldn’t fight.) And we never did anything but praise each other’s work. Until this last book of my husband’s, that is. I had read Raising Raffi for the first time six months before it was published, while I was out of town for the weekend. I had, at that time, enjoyed reading it — it was refreshing, in a way, to see someone else’s perspective on a part of my own life. I even felt a certain relief that my child’s early years, in all their specificity and cuteness, had been recorded. This work had been accomplished, and I hadn’t had to do it! There had been only a slight pang in the background of that feeling that I hadn’t been the one to do it. But as publication drew nearer, the pang turned into outright anger . The opening chapter described my giving birth to our first son, and I didn’t realize how violated I felt by that until it was vetted by The New Yorker ’s fact-checker after that section was selected as an excerpt for its website. Had a geyser of blood shot out of my vagina? I didn’t actually know. I had been busy at the time. I hung up on the fact-checker who called me, asking her to please call my husband instead. (In case you’re wondering, Keith has read this essay and suggested minimal changes.)

I related to the writers in Splinters trying to love each other despite the underlying thrum of competing ambitions. But most of all, Jamison’s book made me even more terrified about sharing custody. “There was only one time I got on my knees and begged. It happened in our living room, where I knelt beside the wooden coffee table and pleaded not to be away from her for two nights each week,” she writes. Envisioning a future in which we shared custody of our children made me cringe with horror. It seemed like absolute hell. At the time we separated, our younger son was only 4 years old and required stories and cuddles to get to bed. Missing a night of those stories seemed like a punishment neither of us deserved, and yet we would have to sacrifice time with our kids if we were going to escape each other, which seemed like the only possible solution to our problem. Thanksgiving rolled around, and I cooked a festive meal that we ate without looking at each other. Whenever I looked at Keith, I started to cry.

We decided to enter divorce mediation at the beginning of December. On Sixth Avenue, heading to the therapist’s office, we passed the hospital where I’d once been rushed for an emergency fetal EKG when I was pregnant with our first son. His heart had turned out to be fine. But as we passed that spot, I sensed correctly that we were both thinking of that moment, of a time when we had felt so connected in our panic and desperate hope, and now the invisible cord that had bound us had been, if not severed, shredded and torn. For a moment on the sidewalk there, we allowed ourselves to hold hands, remembering.

The therapist was a small older woman with short curly reddish hair. She seemed wise, like she’d seen it all and seen worse. I was the one who talked the most in that session, blaming Keith for making me go crazy, even though I knew this wasn’t technically true or possible: I had gone crazy from a combination of sky-high stress and a too-high SSRI prescription and a latent crazy that had been in me, part of me, since long before Keith married me, since I was born. Still, I blamed his job, his book, his ambition and workaholism, which always surpassed my own efforts. I cried throughout the session; I think we both did. I confessed that I was not the primary wronged person in these negotiations, and to be fair I have to talk about why. Sometime post–Last Fight and pre-hospitalization, I had managed to cheat on my husband. I had been so sure we were basically already divorced that I justified the act to myself; I couldn’t have done it any other way. I had thought I might panic at the last minute or even throw up or faint, but I had gone through with it thanks to the delusional state I was in. There aren’t many more details anyone needs to know. It was just one time, and it was like a drug I used to keep myself from feeling sad about what was really happening. Anyway, there’s a yoga retreat center I’ll never be able to go to again in my life.

At the end of the session, we decided to continue with the therapist but in couples therapy instead of divorce mediation. It was a service she also provided, and as a bonus, it was $100 cheaper per session. She didn’t say why she made this recommendation, but maybe it was our palpable shared grief that convinced her that our marriage was salvageable. Or maybe it was that, despite everything I had told her in that session, she could see that, even in my profound sadness and anger, I looked toward Keith to complete my sentences when I was searching for the right word and that he did the same thing with me. As broken as we were, we were still pieces of one once-whole thing.

My husband would have to forgive me for cheating and wasting our money. I would have to forgive him for treading on my literary territory: our family’s life, my own life. My husband would have to forgive me for having a mental breakdown, leaving him to take care of our family on his own for a month, costing us thousands of uninsured dollars in hospital bills. I would have to forgive him for taking for granted, for years, that I would be available on a sick day or to do an early pickup or to watch the baby while he wrote about our elder son. I would have to forgive him for taking for granted that there would always be dinner on the table without his having to think about how it got there. He would have to forgive me for never taking out the recycling and never learning how to drive so that I could move the car during alternate-side parking. I would have to forgive him for usurping the time and energy and brain space with which I might have written a better book than his. Could the therapist help us overcome what I knew to be true: that we’d gone into marriage already aware that we were destined for constant conflict just because of who we are? The therapist couldn’t help me ask him to do more if I didn’t feel like I deserved it, if I couldn’t bring myself to ask him myself. I had to learn how to ask.

No one asked anything or forgave anything that day in the couples therapist’s office. After what felt like months but was probably only a few days, I was watching Ramy on my laptop in my downstairs-bedroom cave after the kids’ bedtime when some moment struck me as something Keith would love. Acting purely on impulse, I left my room and found him sitting on the couch, drinking tea. I told him I’d been watching this show I thought was funny and that he would really like it. Soon, we were sitting side by side on the couch, watching Ramy together. We went back to our respective rooms afterward, but still, we’d made progress.

After a few more weeks and a season’s worth of shared episodes of Ramy, I ventured for the first time upstairs to Keith’s attic room. It smelled alien to me, and I recognized that this was the pure smell of Keith, not the shared smell of the bedrooms in every apartment we’d lived in together. I lay down next to him in the mess of his bed. He made room for me. We didn’t touch, not yet. But we slept, that night, together. The next night, we went back to sleeping alone.

Pickups and drop-offs became evenly divided among me and Keith and a sitter. Keith learned to make spaghetti with meat sauce. He could even improvise other dishes, with somewhat less success, but he was improving. I made a conscious effort not to tidy the house after the children left for school. I made myself focus on my work even when there was chaos around me. Slowly, I began to be able to make eye contact with Keith again. At couples therapy, we still clutched tissue boxes in our hands, but we used them less. Our separate chairs inched closer together in the room.

That Christmas, we rented a tiny Airbnb near his dad’s house in Falmouth. It had only two bedrooms, one with bunk beds for the kids and one with a king-size bed that took up almost the entirety of the small room. We would have to share a bed for the duration of the trip. The decision I made to reach across the giant bed toward Keith on one of the last nights of the trip felt, again, impulsive. But there were years of information and habit guiding my impulse. Sex felt, paradoxically, completely comfortable and completely new, like losing my virginity. It felt like sleeping with a different person and also like sleeping with the same person, which made sense, in a way. We had become different people while somehow staying the same people we’d always been.

Slowly, over the course of the next months, I moved most of my things upstairs to his room, now our room. We still see the therapist twice a month. We talk about how to make things more equal in our marriage, how not to revert to old patterns. I have, for instance, mostly given up on making dinner, doing it only when it makes more sense in the schedule of our shared day or when I actually want to cook. It turns out that pretty much anyone can throw some spaghetti sauce on some pasta; it also turns out that the kids won’t eat dinner no matter who cooks it, and now we get to experience that frustration equally. Keith’s work is still more stable and prestigious than mine, but we conspire to pretend that this isn’t the case, making sure to leave space for my potential and my leisure. We check in to make sure we’re not bowing to the overwhelming pressure to cede our whole lives to the physical and financial demands, not to mention the fervently expressed wants, of our children. It’s the work that we’d never found time to do before, and it is work. The difference is that we now understand what can happen when we don’t do it. I’m always surprised by how much I initially don’t want to go to therapy and then by how much lighter I feel afterward. For now, those sessions are a convenient container for our marriage’s intractable defects so that we get to spend the rest of our time together focusing on what’s not wrong with us.

The downstairs bedroom is now dormant, a place for occasional guests to stay or for our elder son to lie in bed as he plays video games. Some of my clothes from a year earlier still fill the drawers, but none of it seems like mine. I never go into that room if I can help it. It was the room of my exile from my marriage, from my family. If I could magically disappear it from our apartment, I would do it in a heartbeat. And in the attic bedroom, we are together, not as we were before but as we are now.

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  1. Emily Dickinson Study Guide: Study Questions

    Emily Dickinson's personal life receives as much attention, or even more attention, than her poetry. Why do you think this is so? Much time has been spent guessing at the inspiration for Dickinson's love poetry, and the nature of her secret love life.

  2. Emily Dickinson

    Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 - May 15, 1886) was an American poet. ... The first published collection of her poetry was made in 1890 by personal acquaintances Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd, ... In the first collection of critical essays on Dickinson from a feminist perspective, ...

  3. Emily Dickinson

    Emily Dickinson (born December 10, 1830, Amherst, Massachusetts, U.S.—died May 15, 1886, Amherst) American lyric poet who lived in seclusion and commanded a singular brilliance of style and integrity of vision. With Walt Whitman, Dickinson is widely considered to be one of the two leading 19th-century American poets.

  4. PDF Developing Your Personal Response: Emily Dickinson

    Sample Opening Paragraph 1 I liked Dickinson's funny poem, 'I taste'. I thought she used very good description language to show how the beer glasses overflowed with drink, 'frothing pearl'. I liked the way in which she was describing herself as drinking, she 'reels'.

  5. Emily Dickinson

    1830-1886 http://www.edickinson.org Photo by Wendy Maeda/The Boston Globe via Getty Images Emily Dickinson is one of America's greatest and most original poets of all time. She took definition as her province and challenged the existing definitions of poetry and the poet's work.

  6. 'Emily Dickinson Face to Face' Review: Metrical Memories

    For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com. ... "Emily Dickinson Face to Face." This slim volume ...

  7. Emily Dickinson Study Guide: Suggested Essay Topics

    1848-1850: The Great Revival and Poetic Beginnings. 1850-1853: Youthful Courting. 1853-1855: Springfield and Washington. 1856-1862: Prolific Writing, a Shock, and Civil War. 1862-1864: A Mentor. 1865-1874: Deaths in the Family. 1874-1883: Disappointment and Loss. 1884-1886: Called Back.

  8. Emily Dickinson Poetry: American Poets Analysis

    Essays and criticism on Emily Dickinson, including the works Themes and form, "I like to see it lap the Miles", "It sifts from Leaden Sieves", "It was not Death, for I stood up", "I ...

  9. Reading Jane Austen and Emily Dickinson: A Personal Essay

    I reflect on personal encounters with Jane Austen's novels and Emily Dickinson's poetry, demonstrating how this generated my cognitive, sensory and imaginative growth. Analysed memories of discovering and first reading particular works are connected to a critique of prescriptive decolonial discourse.

  10. The Emily Dickinson Collection

    Overview and History. Houghton Library holds the papers of many American writers, including those of the 19th-century Amherst poet Emily Dickinson. Houghton's Dickinson Collection is the largest in the world. In addition to preserving more than 1,000 poems and some 300 letters in her hand, the library also holds the poet's writing table and ...

  11. PDF THE NEW EMILY DICKINSON STUDIES

    This collection presents new approaches to Emily Dickinson s oeuvre. Informed by twenty-rst-century critical developments, the Dickinson that emerges here is embedded in and susceptible to a very physical world, and caught in unceasing interactions and circulation that she does not control. The volume s essays offer fresh readings of Dickinson

  12. A Short Analysis of Emily Dickinson's 'I'm Nobody! Who are you?'

    One of Dickinson's best-loved short lyrics: an analysis. 'I'm Nobody! Who are you?' is one of Emily Dickinson's best-known poems, and one of her most celebrated opening lines, and as opening lines go, it's wonderfully striking and memorable. The opening line features in our pick of the best Emily Dickinson quotations.

  13. Emily Dickinson's Views on Personal Identity in Her Poens

    In this essay, I will be discussing Dickinson's views on her personal identity, as well as the identity of women in general during the Romantic Era. I will be focussing mainly on "The Wife", with supporting evidence from "I'm Nobody! Who are you?" and "The Soul selects her own Society". Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on

  14. Exploring the Layers of Emily Dickinson's Personal Life: A Question of

    Exploring the Layers of Emily Dickinson's Personal Life: a Question of Sexual Orientation Exclusively available on PapersOwl Updated: Dec 01, 2023 Listen The enigma of Emily Dickinson's life, especially her sexual orientation, has been a subject of intrigue and speculation for scholars and enthusiasts alike.

  15. The Tragic Real-Life Story Of Emily Dickinson

    Emily Dickinson's final years were marked by a series of personal losses. A woman with a very small social world, she watched helplessly as old friends vanished from her life. But one death appears to have been the final straw for the poet: Her young nephew Thomas Gilbert "Gib" Dickinson. Gib died of typhoid in 1883.

  16. PDF Emily Dickinson

    Funeral in my Brain". Dickinson's poems on the Hereafter are probably among her best known. She was clearly deeply interested in the process of dying, and returned to it again and again in her writing. In this poem, the poet seems to have died sometime in the past and is now looking back or reliving the experience.

  17. Personal Response to Emily Dickinson Essay Example

    Personal Response to Emily Dickinson Essay Example Available Only on StudyHippo Topics: Emily Dickinson, Literature, Poetry Pages: 5 (1200 words) Published: March 25, 2017 Type: Analysis View Entire Sample Download Sample Text preview For me, the study of Emily Dickinson's poetry was the most memorable part of poetry this year.

  18. My Husband Dated a Woman With the Same Name As Me

    Emily, is incredibly common and she finds someone with it everywhere. ... Essay by Emily Grosvenor . 2024-02-18T13:56:01Z ... First there was Emily Dickinson, arguably the Ur-Emly, with her ...

  19. Personal Response to Emily Dickinson

    Essay on Analysis of Emily Dickinson's The Bustle in a House Figurative language plays a key role in the poem, as well. The best example is The Morning after Death, which sounds a lot like mourning after death. In fact, mourning could even replace morning and the poem would still make sense.

  20. How does Emily Dickinson portray individuality in her poems

    The public is "an admiring Bog." A bog is a swamp that collects dead things, yet generates nothing. There appears to be a loss of individuality, a distortion of self, in becoming famous. One can ...

  21. ⇉Emily Dickinson Personal Response Essay Example

    Emily Dickinson was a talented writer who focused on two main subjects in her poetry: death and nature. Poems J. 816 and J. 1078 both deal with the subject of death, but have different themes. J. 816 questions the existence of an afterlife, while J. 1078 examines what happens after death.

  22. Emily Dickinson Poems Analysis and Plot Free Essay Example

    Emily Dickinson Comparative Poems Pages: 3 (889 words) Emily Dickinson's "A Certain Slant of Light" Analysis Essay Pages: 5 (1269 words) The Analysis of The Poem #280 by Emily Dickinson Pages: 2 (391 words) Emily Dickinson Poetry analysis Pages: 5 (1277 words) Poetry Analysis - I Took my Power in my Hand by Emily Dickinson Pages: 3 (716 words)

  23. Essays on Emily Dickinson

    Emily Dickinson was known for her bold original verse, which stands out for its epigrammatic compression, haunting personal voice, and enigmatic brilliance. Her poems were unique for her era. They contain short lines, typically lack titles, and often use slant rhyme as well as unconventional capitalization and punctuation.

  24. Impression of Emily Dickinson's Work

    Dickinson's writing does require a lot of critical thinking and analysis to decipher the meaning. In "Much Madness is divinest Sense" Dickinson handled the theme of madness with a lighter touch. This poem's social satire on the "Majority" (whose numerousness is emphasized by the plural "prevail") attacks its lack of discernment ...

  25. Should I Leave My Husband? The Lure of Divorce

    By Emily Gould, a novelist and critic, is a features writer for New York Magazine. She writes the 'Making It' newsletter and is most recently the author of 'Perfect Tunes.' ... Keith has read this essay and suggested minimal changes.) I related to the writers in Splinters trying to love each other despite the underlying thrum of ...

  26. Personal response to Emily Dickinson's poetry Essay

    Personal response to Emily Dickinson's poetry Essay The money is then stolen by Thelma's new lover JD, who in the process teaches her how to rob a convenience store, which enables them to acquire money to continue running from the patriarchal system, yet getting them in to deeper trouble, to the point in which there is no turning back.