How Did Emily Dickinson's Life Affect Her Work

Emily Dickinson’s work is said to be some of the finest in the English language, but she spent most of her life in almost complete isolation. She is one of the most famous poets to have ever lived, and yet much about her life is very intriguing and misunderstood. In fact, the majority of her work was not even published during her lifetime. Over 1800 of her poems were published posthumously by her sister. Her work reflects accounts of life, love, nature, death, eternity, and many other subjects. Although Emily Dickinson’s encounters with the outside world were quite few and far between, the few experiences she had in her life greatly impacted her and influenced her work. Born on December 10th, 1830, in Amherst, Massachusetts, Dickinson lived a somewhat normal childhood. She was the middle child to older brother Austin and younger sister Lavinia, and her father Edward was heavily involved in politics. Her mother, Emily Norcross Dickinson, was not as interested in politics but rather enjoyed

She did continue to write, but her work from her later years seems to be unfinished. This period of her life was plagued by friend and family deaths as well as her own health issues. Her father died in 1874, her mother had a stroke in 1875 then eventually died in 1882, and her nephew Gib died in 1883. She fell sick after the death of her nephew and remained so for a few years. She died of poor health on May 5th, 1886 at age 55. Four days later on May 9th, she was buried in the town cemetery. A few years after her death, her sister discovered many of her unpublished poems and began to publish them starting in 1890. It is because of Lavinia (her sister) that we have the multitude of her work that we do