Emily Dickinson Biography

Childhood and Early Life

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born on 10 December 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts, into a literate, respectable, and prominent family. Her grandfather, Samuel Dickinson, was the founder of the reputed Amherst College. Emily Dickinson was born to the learned lawyer and trustee of Amherst College, Edward Dickinson, and Emily Norcross, a former student of Monson Academy. Emily was named after her mother. She lived with her parents and two siblings: her elder brother William Austin and her younger sister Lavinia Norcross. The family moved to Pleasant Street after the birth of Lavinia in order to accommodate Edward’s prospering political and legal career and for providing a bigger house for the children. Edward wanted to provide his children with refined education. The education catered to Emily was not one that was usually provided to girls during the Victorian age. She received the classical education that only the elite could afford. Emily went to a primary school in Amherst before she was enrolled at the Amherst Academy. Along with being a brilliant and observant student, she also took a keen interest in piano and domestic chores, especially gardening. After receiving seven years of formal education at Amherst Academy (1840), she began her education at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in 1847. For the first time, she had to spend a year away from her family.

Friendship and Loss

Emily Dickinson was cheerful and had plenty of female friends as a young girl, some of them were Abiah Root, Abby Wood, Emily Fowler, and her best friend and cousin Sophia Holland. She also had a friend named Susan Gilbert who later married her brother William. Much like her friend, Susan also became a famed writer. Some of her popular works include “Love’s Reckoning” and “One Asked, When Was the Grief?” She also had a couple of male friends, such as Benjamin Newton and Henry Vaughn Emmons. But she never showed any affection beyond friendship towards any of these male friends. But what turned events for Emily was the sudden death of Sophia Holland; she was so shaken by the incident that she had to be sent away to Boston to recover from the trauma. The death of Sophia brought many questions of death and mortality to the mind of young Emily. The fact that the backyard of her house faced a cemetery added to her morbid fascination with death. Thus, it is presumed that the loss of her loved ones inflicted on her mind the pain of mortality, on which she later wrote several poems.

Education and Writing

Benjamin Franklin Newton, a student of Edward Dickinson and Emily’s tutor, had deep regard for her and introduced her to the work of William Wordsworth. In 1848, he gifted Emily the collected works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, which she described as “touch a secret spring.” When she was 20, she read everything from The Holy Bible to contemporary literature. She wrote a letter to her brother, in which she expressed her growing interest and desire to write. She also referred to the aspect of individuality and stressed how different she felt from others. The years from 1858 to 1865 saw a steady leap in her work. She based her writings, especially her poems, on a few themes; she wrote several poems on nature and flora; some ballads venerating a “Master” or “Sire” that was conjectured to be her love; gospel poems based on the parables of the Bible; and poetry on death and mortality.

Withdrawal from Society

Her family moved back to their homestead, and her brother married Susan and had three children. Susan, now a mother, had to devote the bulk of her time to her children, slowly creating a gulf between herself and Emily Dickinson. Soon after, her mother developed a chronic illness. Hence, Emily took on the role of nursing her mother. Edward bought a conservatory during this time where Emily used to grow climate-sensitive plants. She confined herself to the mansion boundaries, it was only the time she consumed in writing and gardening that brought her solace and respite. By 35, she had written over 1000 poems that she categorized in manuscripts; she had sent Samuel Bowles, the chief editor of Springfield Republican, around 50 poems of which he published a few anonymously in his journal. In the late 1860s, she continued to write. However, she stopped collecting her poetry, which became fragments of poetic art. In 1872, she met Judge Otis Phillips Lord, who was a respectable and elderly man. Historians state that the two wrote plenty of letters to each other, and she was in love with him, however, the huge gap in their ages was an obstacle. All speculations ended with his death in 1884.

Legacy

She received no awards in the years that she trod the earth. She restricted herself from social interactions. She was weary of the letters that she had written and wanted them destroyed. She sent her poems and letters only to close family and friends who appreciated her writing skills and never solicited recognition for the same. It was only after her poems were published that she was looked upon as a transcendentalist as her contemporary Ralph W. Emerson. Emily Dickinson’s works were mostly published posthumously. The bulk of her works was retrieved by her sister Lavinia after the poet’s death. Her sister burnt most of her letters as she had promised Emily, but she recognized the prominent worth of her poems and wanted the world to applaud her sister’s works. With the help of Mabel Loomis Todd in 1890, an edited version of Emily Dickinson’s poems was published by T. W. Higginson, but they voraciously edited her work to meet the norms of punctuation and capitalization. Thomas H. Johnson published the first scholarly collection in 1955. They were the exact replica of her manuscripts—untitled and only numbered. No alterations were made and the unconventional punctuation and capitalization were left as originally written by her. In 1958, along with Theodora Ward, Johnson published A Complete Collection of Dickinson’s Letters, which was presented in three volumes. In 1981, her original papers were printed under the name The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson. However, it is surmised that the order of her poetry and letters are still incorrect and are not maintained in chronological order containing the pun, irony, and humor as intended by her. Emily Dickinson died of a kidney disorder called Bright’s Disease at the age of 55 on 15 May 1886. She was buried in the family cemetery as per her last wish. Her legacy lives on through her preserved works, herbarium, and the Emily Dickinson Museum.