Emily Dickinson started writing poetry at a young age. Through good times and bad, she never failed to write a poem about it. All the events that happened throughout Dickinson’s life have helped her to write many brilliant poems, which is why she is now known as one of America’s greatest poets. Emily Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts. Her father was Edward Dickinson, and her mother was Emily Norcross Dickinson. Emily grew up with two siblings, her brother William Austin Dickinson, and her sister Lavinia Norcross Dickinson. Her family lived in a large homestead, which had been in her family for eight generations. Emily went to school at Amherst Academy and attended Holyoke Female Seminary for one year. After …show more content…
She began to only wear white and would not go anywhere but her garden or house. No one is quite certain as to why Dickinson would only wear white. The deaths of some of her close friends were the only things she could think about. Emily’s way of remembering her friends was to write poems about them. During the last two years of Emily’s life, her mental and physical health began to decline. Emily Dickinson died on May 15, 1886 of Bright’s disease. “Bright’s disease is an illness that affects the functioning of the kidneys” (Shurr 365). (Johnson 317; Biography; vcu.edu; Writers for Young Adults)
Emily Dickinson wrote nearly 1,800 poems in her lifetime, with only about seven being published anonymously. Common themes shown in her poetry are life, love, death, immortality, and nature. “Dickinson capitalized words when she thought they should be emphasized, and she used dashes to tell the reader to pause in reading her poems” (Shurr 370). An example of this unusual punctuation is shown in her poem “Some Keep the Sabbath Going to Church”.
Some keep the Sabbath going to
…show more content…
God preaches, a noted Clergyman-
And the sermon is ever long,
So instead of getting to Heaven, at last-
I’m going, all along (Dickinson 318).
Some unique parts of her poetry is that she often uses extended metaphor, end rhyme, slant rhyme, and the title of the poem is always the first line of the poem. Extended metaphor is when you use more than one example to explain a topic, like in “Some Keep the Sabbath Going to Church” she uses three examples: the orchard for a church, a bird for the choir, and God for the priest. Slant rhyme is when two words look like they could rhyme, but don’t completely rhyme. The title of all of Emily’s poems is also the first line of her poems. An example of this would be in her poem “I Never Saw a Moor. ”
I never saw a Moor-
I never saw the Sea-
Yet know I how the Heather looks
And what a Billow be.
I never spoke with God
Nor visited in Heaven-
Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the Checks were given- (Dickinson