-Ali Pourmaleki and David Eaton "If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only way I know it. Is there any other way?”-Emily Dickinson

 Emily, the middle child of Edward and Emily Norcross Dickinson, was born December 10, 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts.  Born into a prominent family.  Had one brother and sister.  Her father wanted his children to be well educated. Dickinson studied at Amherst Academy for seven years of her youth. She started school on September 7, 1840 with her sister Lavinia.  She described her father in a kind manner but considered her mother cold. Father was often away on business.  Family was forced to move due to financial problem. The new house father bought overlooked Amherst burial ground. It was described as gloomy.

Dickinson Children- Emily on left Dickinson’s house on North Pleasant Street in Amherst.

Parents Brother Sister

Amherst College Mount Holyoke

 Experienced some hardship during childhood.  Deaths of friends and relatives, including her young cousin Sophia Holland, prompted questions about death and immortality.  “It seemed to me I should die too if I could not be permitted to watch over her or even look at her face."

 She was introverted.  Took classes in English and classical literature, Latin, botany, geology, and arithmetic.  Attended church during a religious revival that took place in Amherst in  "I never enjoyed such perfect peace and happiness as the short time in which I felt I had found my savior.“  Dickinson never made a formal declaration of faith and attended services regularly for only a few years.  Briefly attended Mount Holyoke College in 1847 after her final term at the Academy.

 Her writing became more important to her in her early twenties.  "Amherst is alive with fun this winter... Oh, a very great town this is!“- Dickinson This enthusiastic mood ended after Leonard Humphrey, a close friend, died.  She and her sister both never got married.  Started writing her own poems in the summer of  In 1858 Dickinson wrote to a friend and said that she would visit if she could leave "home, or mother. I do not go out at all, lest father will come and miss me, or miss some little act, which I might forget, should I run away – Mother is much as usual. I Know not what to hope of her".  From , she wrote nearly 800 poems.  The first half of the 1860s was her most productive writing period.  Much of her work didn’t become popular until after her death.  In 1864 and 1865, she underwent eye treatment for iritis.

Dickinson Letter concerning Leonard Humphrey’s Death

 Started writing less and less poems throughout the early 1870s due to much personal loss. Her father died in Her mother died in Nephew Gib died at age eight in  Continued to write in her last years, but stopped editing and organizing her poems.  Died on May 15, 1886 from Bright’s Disease after several days of worsening symptoms.

 Benjamin Franklin Newton was one influence. She referred to him as her tutor. He introduced her to William Wordsworth’s and Ralph Waldo Emerson’s writings.  She was also influenced by popular work, such as William Shakespeare’s.

 Her poetry was unique, often containing short lines, slant rhyme, and lacking titles.  Used many dashes and included unconventional capitalization and idiosyncratic vocabulary.  Pre-1861: Conventional and sentimental in nature. Thomas H. Johnson, who later published The Poems of Emily Dickinson, was able to date only five of Dickinson's poems before  1861–1865: This was her most creative period. These poems are more emotional. It is estimated that she composed 86 poems in 1861, 366 in 1862, 141 in 1863, and 174 in Theme of death began to take shape during this period.  Post-1866: Began writing less poetry and she no longer organized it.

 Death and immortality  "The Crisis of the sorrow of so many years is all that tires me."  Fascinated with illness and death.  Flowers and gardens  The flowers are symbolic of emotions and actions.  Gospel  Some of her poems reflect Jesus and his teachings.

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What is the significance of the character of death in the poem “Because I Could not Stop for Death”?

What does Dickinson’s description of the bird in the last stanza suggest ?

I heard a fly buzz when I died; The stillness round my form Was like the stillness in the air Between the heaves of storm. The eyes beside had wrung them dry, And breaths were gathering sure For that last onset, when the king Be witnessed in his power. I willed my keepsakes, signed away What portion of me I Could make assignable,-and then There interposed a fly, With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz, Between the light and me; And then the windows failed, and then I could not see to see. What is the significance of the fly? ch?v=DzK0mQER28A

Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune--without the words, And never stops at all, And sweetest in the gale is heard; And sore must be the storm That could abash the little bird That kept so many warm. I've heard it in the chillest land, And on the strangest sea; Yet, never, in extremity, It asked a crumb of me. Why does Dickinson compare hope to a bird?