How Did Emily Dickinson's Life Affect Her Poetry

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Emily Elizabeth Dickinson is an iconic American poet that lived in seclusion throughout the nineteenth century. She wrote poems that reflected her beliefs on love, death and nature, and the messages conveyed in her poems were relatable to readers, ultimately making her poems considered to be timeless. Born on December 10th, 1830, Emily Dickinson lived a reclusive life after she left school as a teenager, which initiated her fond for writing letters and poems. Benjamin Franklin Newton introduced Dickinson to poetry after gifting a Ralph Waldo Emerson book which evoked emotions and influenced the themes that circulate in her poems (Biography.com Editors). After experiencing multiple deaths in her family, Dickinson began to live in isolation and …show more content…

She was one of the very few poets of the nineteenth century that could effectively convey her thoughts into these beautiful pieces of writing. With catastrophic events such as the Civil War occurring, people were unable to appreciate their surroundings (Ford, Karen) because there had simply been no time for poetry or leisure activities however, Emily Dickinson had the ability to convey common themes such as death, nature, and love in her poems so readers can connect and reflect on their lives. Her poems about nature revolved around a garden she had. Unfortunately, Emily Dickinson died due to Bright’s disease on May 15th, 1886, she requested that her sister, Lavina, burns her writing pieces, but Lavina read the poems left behind before she did anything (Emily Dickinson). Lavina realized how talented her sister was and eventually, the poems that were recovered got published. Although Emily Dickinson died at 55, she has heavily impacted and influenced American literature as she initiated the growth, love and popularity for poetry. Emily Dickinson’s poems have taught the world how emotions can be expressed in short pieces of writing with the use of simple and expressive