Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson
When the complete Letters appeared in 1958, Robert Kirsch wrote in the L.A. Times: The missives offer access to the mind and heart of one of Americas most intriguing literary personalities. This selection provides crucial texts for the appreciation of America literature, womens experience in the 19th century, and literature in general.
[These letters] present us with as inward a view of one of God’s rarer creatures as we are likely to be given… The letters themselves are as no othersThe briefest line can be a mystery (and, when fathomed, a communion), the formal note a sign… If [these letters] are put alongside those of…Coleridge and Keats, they will present the most striking contrast in a poet’s reactions and sensibilities. But they will stand there unashamed. * The Times *
She was no solemn bookworm destined to grow into a crabbed recluse, but a lively original creature, fully participating in the joys and despairs of a busy circle of friends and relatives… Here was a woman capable of the most intense emotion who was forced, or forced herself, to crystallize her feelings into words and phrases. The letters and poems are all of a piece. The letters, in fact, read sometimes like the raw materials of the poems. * Listener *
Emily Dickinson’s letters are among the major treasures of American literature… [In] this one-volume selection…virtually everything of interest to the general reader or nonspecialist has been retained. * Library Journal *
She was no solemn bookworm destined to grow into a crabbed recluse, but a lively original creature, fully participating in the joys and despairs of a busy circle of friends and relatives… Here was a woman capable of the most intense emotion who was forced, or forced herself, to crystallize her feelings into words and phrases. The letters and poems are all of a piece. The letters, in fact, read sometimes like the raw materials of the poems. * Listener *
Emily Dickinson’s letters are among the major treasures of American literature… [In] this one-volume selection…virtually everything of interest to the general reader or nonspecialist has been retained. * Library Journal *
Born in Amherst, Massachusetts in 1830, Dickinson began life as an energetic, outgoing young woman who excelled as a student. However, in her mid-twenties she began to grow reclusive, and eventually she rarely descended from her room in her father's house. She spent most of her time working on her poetry, largely without encouragement or real interest from her family and peers, and died at age fifty-five. Only a handful of her 1,775 poems had been published during her lifetime. When her poems finally appeared after her death, readers immediately recognized an artist whose immense depth and stylistic complexities would one day make her the most widely recognized female poet to write in the English language. Dickinson's poetry is remarkable for its tightly controlled emotional and intellectual energy. The longest poem covers less than two pages. Yet in theme and tone her writing reaches for the sublime as it charts the landscape of the human soul. A true innovator, Dickinson experimented freely with conventional rhythm and meter, and often used dashes, off rhymes, and unusual metaphors--techniques that strongly influenced modern poetry. Dickinson's idiosyncratic style, along with her deep resonance of thought and her observations about life and death, love and nature, and solitude and society, have firmly established her as one of America's true poetic geniuses. Rachel Wetzsteon is Assistant Professor of English at William Paterson University. She has published two books of poems, The Other Stars and Home and Away.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780674250703 |
| ISBN 10 | 0674250702 |
| Title | Emily Dickinson |
| Author | Emily Dickinson |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Harvard University Press |
| Year published | 1986-03-15 |
| Number of pages | 384 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |