The Cambridge Introduction to Emily DickinsonEmily Dickinson is best known as an intensely private, even reclusive writer. Yet the way she has been mythologised has meant her work is often misunderstood. This introduction delves behind the myth to present a poet who was deeply engaged with the issues of her day. In a lucid and elegant style, the book places her life and work in the historical context of the Civil War, the suffrage movement, and the rapid industrialisation of the United States. Wendy Martin explores the ways in which Dickinson's personal struggles with romantic love, religious faith, friendship and community shape her poetry. The complex publication history of her works, as well as their reception, is teased out, and a guide to further reading is included. Dickinson emerges not only as one of America's finest poets, but also as a fiercely independent intellect and an original talent writing poetry far ahead of her time. |
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Abiah Root accept afterlife American Amherst Amherst Academy Amherst College Austin beauty biblical Bird Bobolink brother Christ church communion created critics culture Daisy death devotion Dick Dickin Dickinson family Dickinson felt Dickinson wrote Dickinson's interest Dickinson’s letters Dickinson's poems Dickinson's poetry earth edition editors Edward Dickinson Emerson Emily Dickinson emotions Eternity experience faith fascicles father fear feel flowers friends friendship George Eliot God's Heaven heavenly Helen Hunt Jackson Homestead images important inson's language Lavinia letter to Abiah literary living Mabel Loomis Todd marriage Martha Dickinson Bianchi Master mother nature nature's never nineteenth-century Norcross one's pain Paradise poem's poems and letters poet poetic Preceptor publication published punctuation Puritan readers relationships religion religious rhyme romantic Samuel Bowles scholars sentimental sister slant rhymes society soul stanza Susie tell Thomas Wentworth Higginson Todd Transcendentalists vision woman women words writing written
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Page 101 - Because I could not stop for death, He kindly stopped for me; The carriage held but just ourselves And immortality. We slowly drove, he knew no haste, And I had put away My labor, and my leisure too, For his civility. We passed the school where children played, Their lessons scarcely done; We passed the fields of gazing grain, We passed the setting sun.
Page 62 - If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone?
Page 113 - A narrow fellow in the grass Occasionally rides; You may have met him, - did you not, His notice sudden is. The grass divides as with a comb, A spotted shaft is seen; And then it closes at your feet And opens further on. He likes a boggy acre, A floor too cool for corn. Yet when a...
Page 56 - 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.
Page 37 - Success is counted sweetest By those who ne'er succeed. To comprehend a nectar Requires sorest need. Not one of all the purple Host Who took the Flag today Can tell the definition So clear of Victory As he defeated - dying On whose forbidden ear The distant strains of triumph Burst agonized and clear!
Page 91 - These are the days when birds come back, A very few, a bird or two, To take a backward look. These are the days when skies put on The old, old sophistries of June, — A blue and gold mistake. Oh, fraud that cannot cheat the bee, Almost thy plausibility Induces my belief, Till ranks of seeds their witness bear, And softly through the altered air Hurries a timid leaf! Oh, sacrament of summer days, Oh, last communion in...
Page 116 - I'M NOBODY! Who are you? Are you nobody, too? Then there's a pair of us — don't tell! They'd banish us, you know. How dreary to be somebody! How public, like a frog To tell your name the livelong day To an admiring bog!