Poetry of Emily Dickinson

 

Emily Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) is the most important and original poet that the United States has ever produced. Her work and literary style have exerted tremendous influence on the later poets like Hart Crane, Wallace Stevens, Elizabeth Bishop, Sylvia Plath, Marianne Moore, Anne Sexton, Adrianne Rich, and Denise Levertov. The rhythmic, syntactic and thematic deviation of her poetry has influenced practically all North American poets, men and women. None can claim to be free from Dickinson’s influence. In one way or another, all North American poets —and many from other places, like Luis Cernuda, without going any further— from the 20th century onwards are the product of Emily Dickinson.

Dickinson openly disregarded the poetic rules prevailing in American poetry of her time. She was able to create an absolutely personal style and to write poetry of such an experimental tone that even today, one hundred and thirty-three years after her demise it has not been surpassed. For Dickinson, poetry was most important of all things life had to offer, and in her commitment to the poetic expression, there was not the slightest break from her definition of poetry.

Emily Dickinson was an avid reader. She knew the Bible perfectly. And she also read the works of Dickens, of the Brontë sisters, of George Eliot, of Shakespeare, of Lord Byron, and that of Shelley, Blake or Goethe. Consequently, her poetry reflects the influence of a legion of authors.

She was one of the most voluminous poets of the United States. The corpus of her works includes about 1800 poems. But during her lifetime, Dickinson only published seven poems: one appeared in Round Table; five of them were published in the Springfield Daily Republican and the seventh one was included in the anthology A Masque of Poets along with other female writers such as Helen Hunt Jackson, Fanny Fern. But the scholars maintain that Dickinson did not permit any of these publications. All the poems were published without any credit or whatsoever. Apart from these seven poems, no other poems did see any light before her death.

At present, Emily Dickinson holds a very important position in the field of American Literature. Dozens of books have been written - and continue to be written - about her life and work. In 2016, a biographical film was released that achieved great worldwide success, A Quiet Passion, directed by Terence Davies and masterfully performed by Cynthia Nixon. Her poems continue to enjoy the affection of readers, they are studied in universities around the world and translated into different languages. And hundreds of admirers continue to marvel at an immeasurable work that beats with life, so simple and so complex, so sincere and so full of secrets.